Partridge, Rondal

American, 1917 - 2015

BiographyRondal Partridge photographed a wide range of subjects, from the ever-expanding industrial landscape against the background of naturalistic, rural beauty, to a moment of human connection with a family member, friend, or stranger. The attention to balance and symmetry in his compositions challenge the viewer’s perception of what is candid and what is staged. Informed by the words of his mother, Imogen Cunningham, Partridge’s photographs maintained a sense of spontaneity. “My mother taught me to be alert and aware” —Partridge told the Fresno Bee in 2006— “to photograph anything.”

Partridge was raised in a creative household. His parents were heavily involved in the close-knit San Francisco art community, making close family friends in Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. As a teenager, he travelled with Lange as her driver and darkroom assistant while she completed a job cataloging poverty in the rural American South. After working as an assistant to Ansel Adams from 1937-1939, Partridge documented America’s youth for National Youth Administration (NYA), as part of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a federal agency whose goal was to document and improve the plight of the rural poor during the Great Depression. He worked for the photo agency Black Star as an assignment photographer in New York City before being hired as a photographer for U.S. Navy during World War II. After four years chronicling the war, Partridge returned to the West Coast. He spent the rest of his life working as freelance photographer, filmmaker, and lecturer. His work is in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of California; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and others.