Max Ewing collection

Max Ewing, American photographer, novelist, composer, pianist, and sculptor. Ewing was born in Pioneer, Ohio on April 7, 1903 to John Caleb and Clara Barto Ewing, to whom he remained close throughout his life. He started playing piano at an early age. He attended the University of Michigan, where he also served as the music critic for the Ann Arbor Time-News before becoming music editor of the Sunday Magazine, a controversial publication associated with the University of Michigan Daily. Ewing moved to New York City in 1924, where he studied piano under Alexander Siloti for three years before moving to Paris to study with Marcelle Meyer. He enjoyed a successful career as a professional pianist until 1927, when he turned his attention to composition of light musical theater, writing fiction, creating sculptures, and especially photography. He published his only novel, Going Somewhere (Alfred Knopf) in 1933. It received positive reviews but did not gain him a reputation as a successful novelist.

Ewing is best known for his photography, especially the photograph collection "Carnival in Venice" and his 1928 exhibition "Gallery of Extraordinary Portraits." "Carnival of Venice" is a series of photographs of friends posed individually and together against a backdrop depicting a scene from Venice, Italy. Individuals include Muriel Draper, e.e. cummings, Paul Robeson, Berenice Abbott, George Platt Lynes, Lloyd Wescott, Dorothy Crawford, Paul Meeres, Max Ewing, Lincoln Kirstein, and Dorothy Sheldon. The collection received praise from his friends and was shown at the Waldorf-Astoria. For his "Gallery of Extraordinary Portraits," Ewing converted the walk-in closet of his Manhattan studio apartment into a semi-public portrait gallery. He covered the walls with original photographs and reproductions of images of friends and celebrities, representing New York's interracial, gay and lesbian, and artistic circles. This exhibition gained him attention and was re-installed in other New York galleries.

Ewing's nearest friends included Carl Van Vechten, who introduced him to many of the people that appear in Ewing's photographs, Muriel Draper, and the boxer Jack Pollock. He suffered from depression throughout his life and required attention from those that were closest to him. He maintained a consistent correspondence with his parents from a young age until their deaths, writing to them weekly. His father died in 1932 and his mother in 1934. Ewing spent the last few months of his life in Pioneer, Ohio before he committed suicide on June 18, 1934, by drowning himself in the Susquehanna River in Binghamton, New York.