Home » Interviews » Charles Traub : Lens & Screen Artist, Educator

Charles Traub : Lens & Screen Artist, Educator

Introduction to Charles Traub. 2:58 min. Interview: Raymond Elman. Editing & Production: Sabrina Rubinstein. Recorded via Zoom, 3/24/2021, Miami.

CHARLES TRAUB is a lens and screen artist and educator. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1967, he joined the Peace Corps, but returned to his native Louisville, Kentucky after an accident abroad. Traub served in the United States Army until 1967, then enrolled in the Institute of Design in Chicago to study photography. His thesis, “Edge to Edge,” was an abstract black and white series of landscape photographs that were exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1967, Traub began his first major work in color, Street Portraits, which was released in the book Lunchtime.

Traub began teaching at Columbia College in 1971. In 1973, he produced the Cajun Document with Douglas Baz.

In 1987, Traub helped design what is today known as MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Immediately following 9/11, Traub co-founded “here is new york: a democracy of photographs,” which won the Brandan Gill and ICP Cornell Capa Infinity awards. The project is one of the most viewed exhibitions of photographs, as it has been displayed in 42 venues across the world and has a large internet viewership.

The videos below were recorded via Zoom, are organized by topic and run between 32 seconds and 12:07 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.

EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 3:04 min.

Where did you grow up and what was your first awareness of art of any discipline?

SEIZES OPPORTUNITIES: 6:55 min.

How did you get started with photography?

INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 5:28 min.

A few years ago I started roasting vegetables on parchment. The residue on the parchment caught my eye and inspired a new series of paintings that I call “Orts.” To what extent do you feel that artists are born and not made?

UNDERSTANDS ARTISTS’ NEEDS: 3:09 min.

While I was celebrating the first museum purchase of my work, the sculptor Sidney Simon said to me, “Ray, I just want you to keep in mind that art schools graduate 250,000 people per year and five years later less than 1% are still trying to make art.”

EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 1:19 min.

Growing up with a darkroom in your house in Louisville in the 1950s must have been rare. Do you consider your father an anomaly for having built one?

DEVELOP A VOICE: 0:32 sec.

When did you create your first darkroom?

OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 6:27 min.

Do you want to talk about your experiences with the Peace Corp and the army?

INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 2:16 min.

Having been rammed by a car, losing your wife, and being seriously injured while in the Peace Corp in Africa, did you consciously express your grief and trauma through photography?

OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 8:21 min.