Aaron Siskind was an American photographer born in 1903 in New York City. He began his career doing documentary photography but shifted in the 1940s to a more abstract, personal style of photography focused on textures and patterns in objects. By the 1950s, he had completely departed from documentary work and was making abstract photographs influenced by abstract expressionist painters like Franz Kline. Siskind is considered a pioneer in moving photography beyond simple documentation and representation and establishing it as a form of abstract artistic expression.