The Library of Michigan has turned its second-floor Lake Erie Room into a photo gallery featuring the work of the late Norman Zadoorian, who shot thousands of moody black-and-white photographs of Detroit in the mid-20th century.
The library worked closely with the photographer’s son, author Michael Zadoorian, to mount the exhibit, which is free to view Monday through Saturday until Dec. 20. Called “The Searching Eye,” it pairs essays by Michael Zadoorian with his father’s original equipment and photographs, which illustrate life in Detroit from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. The photos are divided into four themes: “Night and the City,” “Detroit as Muse,” “City of Work” and “A Life Behind the Camera.”
“The exhibit represents the lifetime of joy my father had in taking photographs,” Michael Zadoorian said. The elder Zadoorian, who died in 2004, was a self-taught photographer who began shooting when he was a teenager. He spent 35 years working for Detroit Edison (now DTE Energy) as an industrial photographer and was an active member of the Detroit Photographic Club during the heyday of photography clubs and salons, which hosted photography competitions.
“Taking photographs was his dream job,” Michael Zadoorian said. “Every day was different for him. He might be shooting the Thanksgiving Day parade or going down in the salt mines under Detroit to photograph something.”
The younger Zadoorian said his father’s creative job influenced his own career path, even though he didn’t become a photographer. He’s won a Michigan Author Award and two Michigan Notable Book awards, and his novel “The Leisure Seeker” was adapted into a 2017 motion picture starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. He’s pursuing a potential book on his father’s photography. Like Henri Cartier-Bresson, considered the father of street photography, Norman Zadoorian’s “decisive moments” are enthralling to the viewer.
Norman Zadoorian’s photographs are reminiscent of another street photographer, the late Vivian Maier, whose body of work was only discovered after her death. Closer to home, his work is also similar to that of the late Bill Rauhauser, who was known as the dean of Detroit photography.
According to his son, Norman Zadoorian was always ready with his Rolleiflex camera as he traveled the streets of Detroit, taking photos of Detroiters going about their daily business. Some of his photography shows iconic buildings and landscapes that have been lost to time.
“He would take his camera with him on his lunch hour and walk around taking photographs,” Michael Zadoorian said.
His photographs of harshly lit nighttime scenes, like one of a popular burlesque joint, portray some of the seedier parts of downtown Detroit, which in the mid-20th century ranked among the nation’s five largest cities with a population of almost 2 million.
Michael Zadoorian first began showing his father’s photographs on social media, which caught the attention of State Librarian Randy Riley. Riley talked him into mounting an exhibit of his father’s work.
“One of the amazing aspects of this exhibit is that it’s an intergenerational collaboration between both Norman and Michael,” Riley said. “Norman’s lens and Michael’s compositions work together in articulating a unique era in the city of Detroit.”
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