A completely different approach to portraying artists is that of photojournalist Dan Budnik. His spontaneous-looking glimpses of painters and sculptors at work and in repose glow with rich colors, and their informality fits the vibe of the 1950s and ’60s just as Ben-Yusuf’s formality suited her time (see previous review). As a teenager, Budnik hung out at the Cedar Tavern and found himself fraternizing with the likes of David Smith, and Willem de Kooning. When an art teacher showed him Henri Cartier-Bresson’s just-published book The Decisive Moment, Budnik immediately realized how he could be an artist, too.

In his vision, the work frames the artist, often literally. Jasper Johns is boxed in by his American flag paintings; Helen Frankenthaler occupies the white space between two red swaths of one of her color-field paintings; and Roy Lichtenstein peers out at us through a giant Benday screen. There is anecdote here, too: In another memorable shot, Lichtenstein walks past his giant comic-book image “We Rose Up Slowly” while his sons lie on the floor pawing through a pile of comic books.

For a recent show at Knoedler, Budnik used the dye-transfer process to print from his color slides. The results give permanent form to these images, which are now a time capsule of an artistic era long past.

Picturing Artists (1950s-1960s), photographs by Dan Budnik. Knoedler & Company/D.A.P., $55.