The photographs of John Szarkowski, a native of Wisconsin, returned with great applause on Thursday, Sept. 29.

Thanks to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum and its Photography Council, the retrospective of Szarkowski’s photographs has come to fruition. Seventy graceful, black-and-white images that span Szarkowski’s career are now on display for the first time side by side, and it seems only fitting that it take place in his native state.

Born in Ashland in 1925, Szarkowski graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1941 and left the state in 1949 to take a position as the museum photographer at the Walker Art Center.

After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship (1954), Szarkowski produced “The Idea of Louis Sullivan” — a well-received picture book that captured the buildings and the lives surrounding the works of this famed architect.

In the early ’60s, Szarkowski was selected to be the director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. He set out to change the perception of photography as a fine art.

Upon his arrival in the Big Apple, photography did not hold the same prestige as painting or sculpture, but through countless articles, essays and books, he raised the level of discourse surrounding photography.

His 1974 book, “Looking at Photographs,” has become a staple of photographic study for both photographers and art historians. In 1991 Szarkowski retired from his position at the Museum of Modern Art.

Putting down his pen, he picked up his camera and began his second photographic period. Now residing in East Chatham, N.Y., Szarkowski spends his time tending to his meadows and his orchard seeking order and beauty in a universe of chaos.

These, however, are just the facts — “artifacts” as Szarkowski might call them. They are only half of the picture.

What Szarkowski is more interested in are the “lifefacts,” a term he uses to describe the human energy outside the works of Louis Sullivan, but one that also applies to the energy and charisma inherent in his own work.

During an opening-night lecture, the artist said, “It’s better if possible to avoid speaking about pictures.”

Rather odd words for a man who spent nearly 30 years writing about photographs and promoting them as high art, but truthful ones nonetheless.

Turning an old saying on its head, Szarkowski elaborated by explaining that if a picture is worth a thousand words then “those words are all nouns and adjectives.”

That is what comes to mind when looking at Szarkowski’s prints: the names of places, objects, moods, feelings, etc. There is little action in most of Szarkowski’s images. They are tranquil photographs of long-distance locations — idyllic and inviting, perhaps lost.

The majority of the action takes place behind the camera with Szarkowski’s trained eye catching an image before it disappears.

The images Szarkowski takes are his own. They are of objects we have seen countless other photographers document — the whole gamut of photogenic rural landscapes, many of them possessing a ladder.

Through a series of photographs from a divergent group of photographers, Szarkowski humorously illustrated the abundance of ladders in master works. “It never hurts to include a ladder,” he said.

It is a self-described trick that pops up in one of Szarkowski’s most recent images. The inclusion of a ladder is no guarantee for a good photograph, just as much as Szarkowski proclaims. The addition of a ladder illustrates Szarkowski’s understanding of photography as a skill steeped in both chemistry and alchemy.

The art of being a photographer is nothing simple and Szarkowski compares it to the art of growing good apples. One cannot simply plant apple seeds and expect to grow tasty fruit. It can happen sometimes by chance, just as an amateur photographer can sometimes snap a gorgeous picture, but to ensure better-tasting apples, Szarkowski believes you have to take stock of what has already been done.

This new retrospective of Szarkowski’s work will inspire countless others to take up the art of photography. At 80 years of age, Szarkowski is still providing nourishment for future photographers, but they will have to provide their own ladders.

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