IN LOVING MEMORY: GEORGE PITTS
10 September 1951 – 4 March 2017
Please join us in celebrating the life and legacy of George Pitts on Sunday, April 2nd, 2017. The ceremony will begin at 2:00pm and will be held at the Alvin Johnson/J.M Kaplan Hall at 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011.
As a photographer and director of photography, artist, poet, teacher, colleague, mentor, friend, and husband George inevitably changed the lives of all who had the pleasure of knowing him. With immeasurable grace, intelligence, and passion, George spent his time prolifically making his own artwork, while simultaneously cultivating creativity and drive in his students as a professor at Parsons for almost two decades.
In each facet of his life, George brought poise, criticality, and deep engagement with the arts. His speech was mesmerizing, his laugh contagious, and his mind entirely unique. George was an amazing and magnetic soul who will truly be missed. It is a deep loss for his family, friends, school and photo community; his impact will never be forgotten.
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I Seem and Feel Great Rains Not My System
The rains are a great trial for those in it In downs it speaks in compression of air being sapped In bleeds, fallings, gushed moments to contain while yet by the air contained Twice dead and twice imprisoned, the rain came down and still you are in air But we love the body, but we love containment How we love layers, body rain and air And we move, by on our curve with rain for sides Our bone born out as thrust when sought by rain, as form to turn the body in in rain as rain’s force could flex in body’s turns But too much with real nature deflaws form as like when face burned of grimace is burned away But not like so, but as only to have nudeness And so stop short the purging before as absence the person Without his person, unlike being dead, yet near being his body Because this mind does need this form not bodied to its memory This person not without its own event, yet in its event it does not need If in this there shows no feature there then is gladness unnamed Yet without death closer toward in nature to itself - George Pitts, Partial Objects
Photograph: Clayton Cubitt
