After the War everything changed. During the period 1890-1910, and even longer, pictorialism, an impressionistic style, prevailed in photography. Henry Goodwin has the reputation of being a pictorial photograper, and many of his fellow photographers in other countries represented the same era, but Henry Goodwin was a man who had his own ideas about most things.

He made his camera pictures in a pictorialistic style and he preferred to use the manual non silver printing methods. At the same time he liked to talk about himself as an expressionist, being an admirer of the Norwegian expressionist painter Edward Munch. In 1918 he stated:

"Impressionism is just a transitional stage, which has, after a couple of decades of rich development, been replaced by lines with deep, sound roots in earlier good tradition of art."

Five years later he wrote: "The impressionistic view of 'How I see it' has had to yield to expressionism´s serving 'How I see it'. The artist´s first thought should be the characterization of the model. Pictorial and technical aspects will have to come second."

As was mentioned before Henry Goodwin was influenced by the great German photographer Nicola Perscheid at the beginning of his career and Perscheid continued to be of a great importance to him through the years. In addition to Perscheid there was another photographer who was of great significance to Goodwin, Nahum E. Luboshez. Luboshez, who was Eastman Kodak´s travelling technical expert, was born in Russia, but had New York and London as residences and was always travelling about. The first time Goodwin and Luboshez met was when they both visited Perscheid in Berlin.

Luboshez deprecated all kinds of manipulative printing methods and was a keen advocate of 'clean, sound, straightforward photography' by demonstrating how to use the 'honest' bromidepaper for artistic purposes. Goodwin came to sympathize with Luboshez for two main reasons: the friendship between Luboshez and Perscheid and the fact that Goodwin around 1919 was ready to enter a new phase of his development - towards 'straight photography' - but in his own way.

He appreciated some of the works of the new objectivity generation with names such as Alfred Renger-Patzsch, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Karl Blossfeldt. On the other hand he claimed that the debate about 'straight photography' versus 'manipulative pictorial photography' was a fictious one:

'The manipulative work starts when the negative is made'. 'The only thing that has been true in the debate is the appeal to study nature - reality'.

Goodwin was critical to the way the new objectivity photography was developing and the enjoined limitations in picture making. Goodwin continued to use nonsilver processes for the sake of appearance and permanence, but he also used bromide and other silver papers.

Henry Goodwins most successful period from an economic point of view was the years 1916-1920. Several factors, among other things the changes in society after World War I, coincided with a gradual decline in business. The progress of photography did not go Goodwin´s way during the 1920-ies. He lost some of his original motivation, but he was still an important photographer and his artist name, 'Goodwin', prevailed.

Henry B. Goodwin died unexpectedly as a consequence of a fractured leg on September the 11th 1931. The man who had been of great significance to Swedish and Scandinavian photography was gone, only 53 years old. His friend and colleague, professor John Hertzberg wrote in Goodwin´s obituary:

 'In many respects Goodwin was ahead of his time.
Maybe he sometimes met with lack of understanding,
which is almost always the lot of pioneers.
A large amount of his creations with his camera and his pen
will no doubt belong to the treasures,
for the sake of which we shall receive future revenue.'

Pictures on this page (in turn)
Click on the links to get full size views

'Rast' - 'Rest', 1930; 'Bragevägen - Stockholms vackraste gata' - Stockholm, c. 1917; 'Henry Goodwin och stockrosen' - Henry Goodwin and the hollyhock, 1919.