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Inner strength

Marie Cosindas uses her lens to search for our souls

by Leon Nigrosh

The Fitchburg Art Museum's current exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view nearly a half-century worth of work produced by a single artist still actively engaged in making art.

Boston-born Marie Cosindas first thought she might like to be a fabric designer, but her formal studies soon turned to painting where she found greater freedom to express her love of light and color. However, it was a trip to her family's homeland, Greece, which set the stage for her true calling -- photography. Using a small 35mm Rolliflex, Cosindas took snapshots of the Grecian landscape, which she intended to translate into paintings. But something struck a chord, and she never again picked up a paintbrush.

In the early '60s, Cosindas continued to struggle with black-and-white photography, studying with landscape photo master Ansel Adams and making several series of still lifes and architectural photographs. The major turning point in her career came when Dr. Edwin Land, the inventor of Polaroid technology, asked her to test his new instant-developing color film. From that day, Cosindas has been pushing the boundaries of her photography. The 160 images at the FAM gallery are a sampling of her creative energy.

Organized by Worcester Art Museum's curator emeritus Stephen Jareckie, this exhibit contains some of Cosindas's black-and-white works, including her earliest pictures -- dynamic close-ups of the Acropolis. Four 40-by-40-inch prints of her exceedingly complex Still Life 1 allow us to see how her finely tuned eye can play with light and shadow without blurring the total vision. But these works merely set the stage for Cosindas's explosion into the world of color.

Because Polaroid freed her from all the technical drudgery involved in making color prints, she has always been able to concentrate just on her images. Using only available light and often having only a few minutes with which to photograph her subjects, Cosindas has produced a remarkable array of portraits of well-known figures. While a still photographer for the movie industry, she captured a young Paul Newman and his pal Robert Redford as they plot their next sting. We see Alec Guinness as the Ghost of Christmas Past along with at-home pictures of a number of celebrities including James Garner and comedian Danny Kaye.

Many of the pictures in this exhibit were shot with a 4-by-5 Polaroid camera. Yet even within this small framework, Cosindas has captured the essence of her subject whether it be Andy Warhol and Friends or only a silk rose in a porcelain vase. Much of her work was produced with an 8-by-10 camera with a Polaroid back. Because these images are produced as contact prints, Cosindas can bring amazing clarity to her pictures, such as in the dazzling red image of dancer Maria Benitez, or she can create a soft, painting-like vision of a girl holding a bouquet of flowers in Vivian.

Cosindas's background in fabric design is put to good use in her Kimono Series wherein she has photographed several women in lavish Japanese garments. In her triptych Noriko, Cosindas presents her model in various states of alluring undress with the accent on her sensual silk robes. Works like this are reminiscent of her fashion shoots for the Helena Rubenstein organization, only with a more personal approach.

We need to be constantly reminded that the prints are mostly large-format contact Polaroids. The real stretch comes when we are confronted by the 40-by-80-inch portrait of the Langelier daughters. This gigantic image of two young girls is riveting not only for its size and crystal clarity but for the warmth and sensitivity Cosindas was able to capture in her subjects.

For 40 years the diminutive, self-effacing Cosindas has been able to gain the confidence of famous actors, statesmen, world leaders, and just plain folks so that her pictures are not mere surface views, but magically bring out the inner person as well.

Fitchburg Art Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Call 345-4207.