Frampton, Hollis, 1936-1984

There is no telling what Hollis William Frampton, Jr.'s mental age was when he was born on March 11, 1936 in Wooster, Ohio ; however, when tested at approximately age 12, he was found to have that of one older than 18. At the biological age of 15 he attended Phillips Academy, Andover on full scholarship, where, from 1951 – 1954, as a classmate of Frank Stella and Carl Andre, he studied languages (French, German, Latin, and Greek), literature, and the arts (especially photography and poetry). A full scholarship to Harvard University was rescinded after complications surrounding Frampton's graduation from Andover, and so he attended Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio from 1954 – 1957, studying languages (Russian, Sanskrit, Chinese) and mathematics. In 1956, in relation to a radio program Frampton was running at Oberlin College, a correspondence began with Ezra Pound that resulted in Frampton moving to Washington, D.C. to study with Pound at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. In 1958, Frampton moved to New York, N.Y. and began his career as a still photographer and photographic lab technician.

Although Frampton began making films in 1962, he did not begin producing or exhibiting them on a regular basis until 1968-69. His Zorns Lemma (1970) was included in the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center and his serial film Hapax Legomena (1971-72) won him many in-person appearances at museums and colleges around the country. As his filmmaking career took off so did his career as a critic and academic (teaching at Cooper Union and SUNY/Buffalo [1973-1984]). Throughout the 1970s Frampton wrote substantial articles for Artforum and October on photography and film (many of these are collected in Circles of Confusion: Film, Photography, Video – Texts 1968 – 1980 [Rochester, New York: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1983]). After 1972, he turned his attention to the project that would dominate his attention for the rest of his life, the 36 hour calendrical film cycle Magellan, which was to be viewed over a period of 369 days, and remained incomplete at the time of Frampton's death. In the last decade of his life, Frampton also produced xerographic and photographic works and pursued his interests in computers.

From the guide to the Hollis Frampton Collection, 1963-2001, (Harvard Film Archive, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)