Marvin E. Newman
1927 – 2023
Advisory Council Member
New York-based Marvin Newman became known to the Maxwell Street Foundation (MSF) through his short film entitled, The Church on Maxwell Street, collaboratively produced with Yasuhiro Ishimoto while art students in Chicago. The film was part of Marvin’s senior project, “as a means of developing one’s perception about experiences using film as a way to investigate reality.” Filmed onsite at 910 W. Maxwell Street, the film documents the intensity of gospel music on Maxwell Street in 1951 that persevered at that location for decades. Marvin studied under legendary photographers and educators Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at Chicago’s Institute of Design, who shaped mid-century modern photography. Marvin became one of the most revered sports photographers of all time, with more Sports Illustrated covers than any other in a successful career that culminated in numerous gallery exhibitions. Marvin attended a Chicago Blues Festival film series that the MSF coordinated at the Chicago Cultural Center that included his Maxwell Street film, and it is also featured on the MSF’s website with his permission, provided through the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York. With a keen eye for the quirkiness of the urban environment, Newman chose his subjects deliberately, shooting sequences of related movements and objects as conveyed in The Church on Maxwell Street.