Howard Zieff
The Optometrist (New York Daily News ad campaign)

Image Not Available for The Optometrist (New York Daily News ad campaign)
The Optometrist (New York Daily News ad campaign)
Image Not Available for The Optometrist (New York Daily News ad campaign)
ArtistAmerican, 1927–2009
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • The Optometrist (New York Daily News ad campaign)
Date1953
Place depictedNew York City, New York, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 14 × 19 in. (35.6 × 48.3 cm)
Sheet: 14 × 19 in. (35.6 × 48.3 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Dr. and Mrs. Malcolm L. Mazow in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker on the occasion of her retirement
Object number2014.96
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionSome advertising photographers employed humor to make their products stand out. Howard Zieff was an icon of the New York ad world in the 1950s and 60s. He made his name with a series of ads for the New York Daily News, which presented average news consumers in everyday situations so absorbed in reading the paper that they become inattentive to their surroundings, performing gaffes that range from the amusing to the ridiculous. Their inattention is akin to that depicted in today’s viral “epic fail” Internet videos and memes mocking people’s misfortunes and blunders.
ProvenancePrivate collection, Los Angeles; [G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Beverly Hills, California, 2002]; purchased by MFAH, 2013.
Exhibition History“Made for Magazines: Iconic 20th-Century Photographs,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 9–May 4, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Artist's stamp on verso: photograph by / HOWARD ZIEFF

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