LOUIS DIENES (1925-2016), poet and photographer, was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and, as a boy, moved with his family to Boston. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then New York University. In 1943 he began the study which, as he describes in this book, changed his life magnificently: the study of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism with its founder, the poet and critic Eli Siegel. Louis Dienes says that Black & White expresses, “along with my enthusiasm for photography, my gratitude to Eli Siegel for teaching me that poetry arises from the oneness of the permanent opposites in reality as seen by an individual.”
Photographs by Louis Dienes have appeared in numerous group shows at the Terrain Gallery. In 1962 he had a one-person exhibition at the Terrain. And, with the Aesthetic Realism Photographers, his work was included in travelling exhibitions throughout the United States.
As poet, he is a co-author of the landmark book Personal & Impersonal: Six Aesthetic Realists (Definition Press, 1959). And poems by him have been published in such journals as Black Mountain Review, Georgia Review, Pegasus, Midland Poetry Review and the New York Herald Tribune Poet’s Column.
Louis Dienes often spoke about how much he learned as he continued to attend classes in poetry and in the relation of art and life, conducted by the Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education, Ellen Reiss.
