Fred Plaut
Frederick Plaut (1907–1985
Early life
Frederick ("Fred") Plaut was born in
In Paris, Fred Plaut met his future wife, Rose Kanter, a Polish-American soprano pursuing vocal studies in France. They were married on September 24, 1938. She performed in France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, returning to the United States in June 1940, just as Paris was falling into Nazi hands. She continued her singing career in the United States under the name Rose Dercourt, making her American debut at Town Hall in April 1944. She was a close friend of Francis Poulenc, who dedicated some of his songs to her and maintained a steady correspondence with her until his death in 1963.
Engineer for Columbia Records
Fred Plaut came to the United States in January 1940 and in April of that same year began his career as a recording engineer with
While still with Columbia Records, Plaut gave several extension courses in The Art of Recording for the Manhattan School of Music. After his retirement from Columbia in 1972, Plaut joined the staff of the Yale School of Music as consultant and Senior Recording Engineer and in 1977 began teaching classes in the Art of Recording. In 1975, Plaut taught Music in Modern Media at Columbia University.
Photography
Plaut's second career was as a
Fred and Rose Plaut were in the mainstream of New York City's musical life. They frequently attended or hosted dinner parties. The Plaut penthouse received such guests as Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Henri Sauguet, Carlos Surinach, Igor Stravinsky, George Balanchine, Edgard Varèse, and Vittorio Rieti. These social occasions also allowed Plaut to take many candid photographs.
Fred Plaut also took many candid photographs on his frequent vacations with Rose to such countries as France, Italy, Spain, India, Mexico, and Israel. These photos included not only typical tourist's pictures, but also the famous personalities they encountered. The travel photos include candid portraits of Francis Poulenc, Pierre Bernac, Alberto Moravia, Pablo Picasso, Eugene Berman, and Janet Flanner
Plaut also had opportunities to take posed portraits of artists for publicity purposes. His photos have been used for brochures, flyers, posters, and concert programs by the Juilliard String Quartet, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Albaneri Trio, Bethany Beardslee, Lehman Engel, and Ettore Stratta.
Plaut's photographs have been exhibited at several museums, including seven exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and have appeared in numerous major American and foreign magazines. Many book illustrations, book covers, and some eighty record album covers are to his credit. In a departure from his music imagery, it was his charming photograph of a stout Frenchman in slippers playing draughts on a street bench against an opponent who is a young girl that was chosen by Edward Steichen for The Family of Man who curated the record-breaking MoMA show in 1955 which toured the world to be seen by 9 million visitors.[2] A selection of Plaut photographs was published as "The Unguarded Moment: A Photographic Interpretation" (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, c1964). This contains over one hundred of his finest portraits, as well as short biographical sketches of the subjects.
References
- ^ The Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers. Gilmore Music Library Repository, Yale University.
- ^ Mason, Jerry, ed. (1955). The family of man the greatest photographic exhibition of all time--503 pictures from 68 countries. Museum of Modern Art.
External links
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