An early advocate of color photography, Joel Meyerowitz has impacted and influenced generations of artists. For fifty-eight years, the master photographer has documented the United States' ever-changing social landscape.
During the late 1960s, Meyerowitz carried two cameras: one loaded with monochrome stock, the other with color. Just how, when, and why American fine art photographers switched from black-and-white image-making, prized within the gallery system, to color photography, once seen as the preserve of tourist photography, has been the cause of much debate.
In Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color, Meyerowitz tells the story of his early days as a photographer when he was told that serious photographers took black-and-white pictures. But why, he asked, when the world is in color? He then bought a color camera and various rolls of film and began to experiment with color techniques: a passion he continues to pursue.
A photographic travelog of Meyerowitz's yearlong journey across postwar Europe
In 1966, at the age of 28, photographer Joel Meyerowitz embarked on a journey that would take him to the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Eastern Europe, Turkey and Greece. In total, he drove 20,000 miles through 10 countries and ended up taking 25,000 photographs. This trip was a transcendental experience and formative in shaping Meyerowitz's instinctive and brilliant identity that he is known for today. Europa 1966-1967 compiles a selection of photographs taken by Meyerowitz on his yearlong trip through Europe, offering an exciting glimpse of the New Old World that, having lately overcome the trauma of World War II, opened itself to modernity and progress. Meyerowitz witnessed societies in transition, stuck between dictatorship and economic blossoming. Yet he also documented unshakable cultural traditions, such as when he lived with a flamenco-performing family in Francoist Spain for six months. The strength and freshness of Meyerowitz's gaze and the new codes that were captured in these pictures inspired the next generation of photographers.
Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) is a street, portrait and landscape photographer. The New York native began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate for its use at a time when there was significant resistance to the idea of color photography as serious art. Many of his photographs are icons of modern photography, and he is considered one of the most influential representatives of the New Color Photography of the 1960s and '70s. His work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions around the world and is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and many other museums worldwide.
The oral autobiography of one of American photography's most legendary figures
Joel Meyerowitz is one of the pioneers of color photography, street photography, large-format photography and portraiture. The Pleasure of Seeing offers a look behind the scenes of his life and career. In conversation with historian and photographer Lorenzo Braca, Meyerowitz describes meeting Robert Frank; photographing on the streets of New York City with Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand; traveling across America and Europe; learning from John Szarkowski; working on exhibitions and publications; photographing at Ground Zero in 2001 and 2002; and producing his most recent still lifes and self-portraits.
Meyerowitz reveals the stories behind many of his famous photographs and discusses the value of the visual image as well as technical details concerning cameras and lenses, the printing process and various films. The book features over 100 images, including Meyerowitz's most iconic photographs and new and previously unpublished material.
Born in the Bronx in 1938, Joel Meyerowitz began capturing everyday scenes on the streets of New York in 1962 and was an early adopter of color film for the genre, advocating its use when many photographers resisted its popularization. He has published more than 35 books.
Lorenzo Braca (born 1977) is an Italian historian and photographer who has published widely on the literature and imagination of the late Middle Ages. His photography explores the urban environment. His first solo exhibition was held in 2021.
An expanded edition of Meyerowitz's acclaimed study of the many shades and styles of red hair
Photographer Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) began photographing redheads in 1978 against the contrasting blue backdrop of Cape Cod. The portraits from this period are collected in this new edition of Meyerowitz's 1991 photobook Redheads, featuring 16 additional images. After running an ad in the Provincetown Advocate, Meyerowitz began collecting the experiences of people who grew up with red hair, in addition to photographing them. Making up only two or three percent of the world's population, their stories of schoolyard bullying and self-acceptance illustrate a broader narrative of growth and beauty.
Despite cultural and racial distinctions between redheads, the phenotypic association between the subjects brings a sense of familiality to the collection of portraits.
Meyerowitz describes how red hair and its reaction to light evokes a sense of the color film process. He is known for his transition to color film during a period of resistance to color photography. My way of making portraits is not by getting down on my hands and knees, nor climbing high on a ladder, nor getting into bed with a celebrity, Meyerowitz writes, but simply standing eye to eye with anyone who has found their way to me, young or old. I need only one or two sheets of film and the patience to see it through. This hardcover edition includes previously unseen portraits.
Meyerowitz brilliantly demonstrates how C zanne's studio and its contents enhanced the flatness of his paintings
Some years ago, while working on a book commission about Provence, Joel Meyerowitz visited C zanne's studio in Aix-en-Provence. While there, he experienced a flash of understanding about C zanne's art. C zanne had painted the studio walls a dark gray, mixing the color himself. Consequently, every object in the studio seemed to be absorbed into the gray of the background. There were no telltale reflections around the edges of the objects, so there was nothing that could separate them from the background itself. Meyerowitz suddenly saw how C zanne, making his small, patch-like brush marks, moved from the object to the background, and back again to the objects, without the illusion of perspective. After all, C zanne was the original voice of flatness.
Meyerowitz decided to take each of the objects in C zanne's studio and view them against the gray wall (managing to obtain permission from the Director of the Atelier--no-one had touched these objects in ages). His impulse was to place each one in the exact same spot on his marble-topped table and just make a dumb record of it. He then decided to arrange them in rows, almost as if they were back on his shelf above the table, and made a grid of five rows with five objects on each row, with C zanne's hat as the centerpiece.
This beautifully designed volume presents these photographs, which are at once marvelous photographic still lifes and an incredible revelation of C zanne's methods.