Sitting with Carole - Carole Kismaric's life, work, and impact on the world of photography.    
Biographics Interviews
 
Site Explanation

This site traces the professional career of our dear friend Carole. It is not meant to be a biography per se, but rather a description of the road she traveled during the very unique time in American history when photography and technical image-making came to the fore. Carole was a significant part of this development.

This site is not a “finished product.” It is not meant to be.  It is a “work in progress.” Please contact us via the “Feedback” section of this site if you want to contribute additional materials.

Carole was married to Charles Mikolaycak a noted book illustrator and designer. In addition to working together on titles such as The Boy Who Tried to Cheat Death and The Rumor of Pavel and Paali: A Ukrainian Folktale, Mikolaycak worked designing publications for Time Life Books, Aperture, and other publishers. The University of Minnesota's Children's Literature Research Collection has a web site dedicated to his work which can be found at http://special.lib.umn.edu/clrc/mikolaycak.php

SITE CREDITS

Project lead

Howard Pyle

 

Visual and graphic design

Will Weems

 

Interviews and editorial

Allan Chasanoff and Susan Jonas

 

Research and content development

Kirsten Johnson

 

Text from Biographics: Career section

Ed Leffingwell

 

Video and animation editor

Stephen Kozlowski

 

Media support and imaging

Steve Caruso and Miho Suzuki

Site Map
Launch page
Home Page

Carole Kismaric was a photography editor, an author, a curator, and a mentor. This site details her career and influence on the world of photography as told by the people with whom she worked. In addition to interviews with Carole, it contains video interviews with photographers such as Gilles Peress, Larry Fink, and Robert Adams, who both collaborated on projects with Carole and knew her as a friend. Authors and curators such as Gwen Darien, Richard Cravens, and Susan Jonas talk about Carole’s work methods and accomplishments. The Biographic section contains photographs, press clippings, a timeline, and a biography of her career. The goal of this site is to demonstrate Carole’s impact on photography, on the language of visual imagery, and on the lives of her colleagues and friends.

Biographics

Career
This section contains a textual description of Carole’s career. Written by her good friend and colleague Ed Leffingwell.

Photos
This section contains photos from throughout Carole’s career: from early pictures of her interviewing Robert Kennedy for the high school news paper to hanging photos from “Telex Iran” at PS-1. Many of the photos in this section are also presented along with the videos in the Interviews section.

Timeline
A graphic timeline that represents Carole’s entire career. While this does not list every project that Carole worked on, it does present a majority of the projects that she worked on in relation to the periods of her life. As many of the titles in her early career overlap with various positions Carole held, this timeline is useful in grasping the progression of her work and interests.

Press
From an early age, Carole was involved in presenting information to the public and having her work reviewed in the press. This section contains press clippings about Carole, her work and career as well as articles written by her and obituaries.

Interviews

Early Career
This section contains interviews, photos, and articles related to Carole’s early career. In this section, Carole is the main interview subject. She talks about early influences, her work as journalist, and her formative decision to move from journalism to picture editing.

Time-Life Books
This section contains interviews, photos, and articles related to Carole’s work at Time-Life Books. Her work on series such as The Science Library, The Photography Series, and Human Behavior were instrumental in furthering her understanding of the interplay between works and images. Interviews with Larry Fink, Fred Ritcin and others show how Carole worked as picture editor and detail her style and editorial process.

Aperture
This section contains interviews, photos, and articles related to Carole’s work at Aperture. As an editor, she was responsible for the periodical and for creating monographs such as Larry Fink’s “Social Graces” and Gilles Peres’ “Telex Iran.” This section contains interviews with Larry Fink, Gilles Peres, Richard Cravens, Robert Adams, and others.

Solo Projects and PS1
As Director of Publications for PS1, Carole was responsible for important works such as the Nogucci catalogue for the 1986 Venice Biennial and the exhibition of images from Aperture publication “Telex Iran.” Her most notable solo projects are “Forced Out” a widely acclaimed book about refugees and the MoMA exhibition “From the Picture Press.”

Lookout
Carole began a partnership with Marvin Heiferman in 1990 called Lookout. Using books and exhibitions and their primary mediums, Lookout examined social concepts with books such as “Growing up with Dick and Jane” and exhibitions such as “Talking Pictures” (also a widely regarded book) as well as “Fame: After Photography” at the MoMA in New York.

Carole as Teacher
In the late 1980’s Carole began teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York City working with graduate photography students as a thesis advisor. In her role as a teacher, she worked with photographers such as Brian Palmer and Peter Rad. Teaching alongside Marvin Heiferman, they focused on visual narrative and taught photographers how to put pictures together in meaningful ways.

Full Interviews

Index of Interviews by Person

Site Explanation and Map

This page explains the background, purpose, and credits for this web site along with a site map that shows the different sections on the site.

Feedback

This page provides a form where users can send comments and questions to the site editors.

  Site Explanation and Map