An exhibition of photographs made during the 1950 and ‘60s by Nobel Prize Laureate, Martin Karplus, is currently on view at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Now a Harvard University Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, Dr. Karplus took up photography when he was given his uncle’s Leica as a gift upon completing his PhD at Cal Tech in 1953. When he was awarded a fellowship to study at Oxford University, he took the camera along.

In his artist statement, Karplus says, “Since I was only 23 years old and had studied continuously all the way through graduate school, I was eager for the sojourn in Europe to provide experiences beyond science. A National Science Foundation fellowship gave me a generous (at the time) salary of $3000 per year, which was sufficient to do considerable traveling. Outside of the three six-week university terms during which I was in residence in Oxford, I made numerous trips throughout Europe. Meeting people and being exposed to their cultures, art, architecture, and cuisines was an incredible experience, which has had a lasting effect on my life.” On returning to the States, Dr. Karplus continued photographing in the Southwest, in Los Angeles, and on trips to South America.

Dr. Karplus's Kodachrome views of a world that has since been homogenized and digitized offer a surprising change of scene. The exhibition continues at the Austrian Cultural Forum through November 28. 11 East 52^nd Street, NY, NY. Information.

Martin Karplus was born in Vienna, Austria, and moved with his parents and brother to the United States in 1938. He was an undergraduate at Harvard College and went to the California Institute of Technology, where he received his PhD in Chemistry under Linus Pauling in 1953. He spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in Oxford, England, before returning to the USA to join the faculty at the University of Illinois. In 1966 he became Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, where he continues to do research. In 1996, he also became Profeseur Conventionné at the Université Louis Pasteur. He and his wife, Marci, divide their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Strasbourg, France. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a foreign member of the Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of London.