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Joel Meyerowitz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joel Meyerowitz
Meyerowitz in 2004
Born (1938-03-06) March 6, 1938 (age 86)
New York, New York, U.S.
EducationOhio State University
OccupationPhotographer
StyleStreet Photography
Websitewww.joelmeyerowitz.com

Joel Meyerowitz (born March 6, 1938)[1] is an American street, portrait and landscape photographer. He began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate of the use of color during a time when there was significant resistance to the idea of color photography as serious art. In the early 1970s he taught photography at the Cooper Union in New York City.[2][3]

His work is in the collections of the International Center of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, and New York Public Library, all in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.

Career

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In 1962, inspired by seeing Robert Frank at work, Meyerowitz quit his job as an art director at an advertising agency[4][5][6] and took to the streets of New York City with a 35 mm camera and color film. As well as Frank, Meyerowitz was inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eugène Atget—he has said "In the pantheon of greats there is Robert Frank and there is Atget."[7]

After alternating between black and white and color, Meyerowitz "permanently adopted color" in 1972,[8]: 182  well before John Szarkowski's promotion in 1976 of color photography in an exhibition of work by the then little-known William Eggleston.[8]: 167–169  Meyerowitz also switched at this time to large format,[8]: 182  often using an 8×10 camera to produce photographs of places and people.

Meyerowitz appears extensively in the 2006 BBC Four documentary series The Genius of Photography[5] and in the 2013 documentary film Finding Vivian Maier. In 2014 the documentary Sense of Time by German filmmaker Ralph Goertz was published.

He is the author of many books including Cape Light, considered a classic work of color photography.[9] Meyerowitz photographed the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, and was the only photographer allowed unrestricted access to its Ground Zero immediately following the attack.[10] This resulted in the book Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive (2006),[11] which Parr and Badger include in the third volume of their photobook history.[12]

On January 18, 2017 Meyerowitz was honored for his lifelong work with a place at the Leica Hall of Fame and was described as a "magician using colour" and being able to "both capture and framing the decisive moment".[13]

Personal life

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Meyerowitz was born in the Bronx, to working class Jewish immigrant parents from Hungary and Russia.[14] He studied art, art history, and medical illustration at Ohio State University,[15] graduating in 1959.[16] He is married to English novelist Maggie Barrett. In addition to their home in New York City, they maintain a residence outside of Siena, Tuscany, Italy.[17]

Publications

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Photo books and monographs

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  • Cape Light: Color Photographs by Joel Meyerowitz. With a transcript of an interview between Meyerowitz and Bruce K. MacDonald. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1979. ISBN 0-87846-132-9.
  • St. Louis and the Arch. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1980. ISBN 0-82121-093-9.
  • Wild Flowers. Boston: Bulfinch, 1983. ISBN 0-82121-528-0.
  • A Summer's Day. New York: Crown, 1985. ISBN 0-81291-182-2.
  • Creating a Sense of Place. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. ISBN 1-56098-004-4.
  • Redheads. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1991. ISBN 0-84781-419-X.
  • Bay/Sky. Boston: Bulfinch, 1993. ISBN 0-82122-037-3.
  • At the Water's Edge. Boston: Bulfinch, 1996. ISBN 0-82122-310-0.
  • Joel Meyerowitz. Text by Colin Westerbeck. 55. London: Phaidon, 2001. ISBN 0-7148-4021-1.
  • Tuscany: Inside the Light. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. ISBN 1-40274-321-1.
  • Aftermath. London: Phaidon, 2006. ISBN 0-71484-655-4.
  • Out of the Ordinary 1970-1980. Rotterdam: Episode, 2007. ISBN 90-5973-067-4.
  • Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks. New York: Aperture, 2009. ISBN 1-59711-122-8.
  • Between the Dog and the Wolf. Kamakura, Japan: Super Labo, 2013. ISBN 978-4-905052-61-6. Edition of 500 copies.
  • Joel Meyerowitz - Retrospective. Cologne / New York: Koenig Books / D.A.P., 2014. ISBN 978-3-86335-588-3.
  • Glimpse. Tokyo: Super Labo, 2014. ISBN 978-4-905052-73-9. Edition of 1000 copies.
  • Out of the Darkness: Six Months in Andalusia 1966~1967. Madrid: La Fábrica, 2018. ISBN 978-84-17048-43-3.
  • Where I Find Myself: A Lifetime Retrospective. London: Laurence King, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78627-186-0. With a text by Colin Westerbeck.

Further publications

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  • Bystander: A History of Street Photography. With Colin Westerbeck. Boston: Bulfinch, 1994. ISBN 0-82121-755-0.
    • UK edition: London: Thames & Hudson 1994. ISBN 0-500-54190-6 (2nd ed.: Norton Co 1999).
    • Paperback edition with a new afterword on street photography since the 1970s: Boston: Bulfinch/Little Brown, 2001. ISBN 0-8212-2726-2.
    • New revised and expanded edition: London: Laurence King, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78627-066-5.
  • Paul Strand: The Gardens of Orgeval. Selection and text by Meyerowitz. New York: Aperture 2012. ISBN 978-1-59711-124-9.
  • Pictures from Moving Cars. Photographs by Meyerowitz, Daido Moriyama und John Divola, Abad, 2013.[19]
  • Colin Westerbeck: Vivian Maier: The Color Work. Foreword by Joel Meyerowitz. New York: Harper Collins 2014. ISBN 978-0-06-279557-1.
  • Seeing Things. A Kid's Guide to Looking at Photographs. New York: Aperture 2016. ISBN 978-1-59711-315-1.
  • Joel Meyerowitz: How I Make Photographs. Masters of Photography. London: Laurence King 2020. ISBN 978-1-78627-580-6.
  • The Pleasure of Seeing. Conversations with Joel Meyerowitz on Sixty Years in the Life of Photography. Bologna: Damiani 2023. ISBN 978-88-6208-793-3.

Literature

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Awards

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Exhibitions

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  • 1968: My European Trip: Photographs from the Car by Joel Meyerowitz, MOMA, August 3–September 29, 1968[23]
  • 2006: Joel Meyerowitz: Modern Color, Vintage Prints, Edwynn Houk Gallery, April 27 — June 17, 2006[24]
  • 2012: Joel Meyerowitz - 50 Years of Photographs Part I: 1962 - 1977, November–December 2012;[25] and Joel Meyerowitz - 50 Years of Photographs Part II: 1976 - 2012, December 2012 – January 2013,[26] Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
  • 2014: Joel Meyerowitz Retrospektive, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, (curated by Ralph Goertz),[27]
  • 2017: Joel Meyerowitz - Transition, Howard Greenberg Gallery, September 7 - October 21, 2017[29]

Collections

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References

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  1. ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation". Retrieved 2019-08-16.
  2. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz" International Center of Photography. Accessed 15 June 2017
  3. ^ Nate Rawlings, "Taking His Time: A Look Back at 50 Years of Joel Meyerowitz's Photographs" Time (magazine), 2 November 2012. Accessed 15 June 2017
  4. ^ Rawlings, Nate (2 November 2012). "Taking His Time: A Look Back at 50 Years of Joel Meyerowitz's Photographs". Time. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  5. ^ a b The Genius of Photography. BBC. Archived from the original on 11 November 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2011. Alt URL
  6. ^ "Visions and Images: Joel Meyerowitz, 1981" (Interview). Interviewed by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved 28 November 2011. You were working as an art director at a small advertising agency when you decided to try photography
  7. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz". IIPA - International Institute of Photographic Arts. iipa.org. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
  8. ^ a b c Gilles Mora, The Last Photographic Heroes: American Photographers of the Sixties and Seventies (New York: Abrams, 2007)
  9. ^ "Robert Koch Gallery - Exhibition Detail - Joel Meyerowitz". Archived from the original on 29 October 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2011. His first book, Cape Light, is considered a classic work of color photography
  10. ^ Neil Harris Joel Meyerowitz: Ground Zero, Then and Now, Time, 10 September 2011
  11. ^ Coleman, Sarah (n.d.). "Picturing Ground Zero". Photo District News. Archived from the original (jsp) on 17 November 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2007.
  12. ^ Parr, Martin, Badger, Gerry (2014). The Photobook: A History Volume III. London: Phaidon. p. 205. ISBN 9780714866772.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ "Leica M10 Launch Event". YouTube. 18 January 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  14. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz Photography, Bio, Ideas". theartstory.org. The Art Story. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  15. ^ "About". Joel Meyerowitz. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  16. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz". International Center of Photography. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  17. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (7 March 2018). "Photography legend Joel Meyerowitz: phones killed the sexiness of the street". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  18. ^ "Cape Light: Photographs by Joel Meyerowitz". Aperture Foundation. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  19. ^ See the bibliography in Where I Find Myself 2018, p. 347 and Glimpse 2014. Video on Vimeo, uploaded by PhotoBookStore.co.uk on January 14, 2014. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  20. ^ a b Suzanne Muchnic, "Joel Meyerowitz, the laid-back lensman", Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1985. Accessed 2011-12-21.
  21. ^ a b "Joel Meyerowitz HonFRPS, Centenary Medal Winner 2012". Royal Photographic Society. October 10, 2012. Archived from the original on July 1, 2014. Retrieved July 1, 2014. archived "Page not found".
  22. ^ "Die Sieger 2006/2007 Archived 2010-11-10 at the Wayback Machine", Deutscher Fotobuchpreis website. Accessed 2011-12-21.
  23. ^ "My European Trip: Photographs from the Car by Joel Meyerowitz". MOMA. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  24. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz: Modern Color, Vintage Prints". Edwynn Houk Gallery. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  25. ^ "Main Gallery - Joel Meyerowitz - 50 Years of Photographs Part I: 1962 - 1977 - Exhibitions - Howard Greenberg Gallery". www.howardgreenberg.com.
  26. ^ "Main Gallery - Joel Meyerowitz - 50 Years of Photographs Part II: 1976 - 2012 - Exhibitions - Howard Greenberg Gallery". www.howardgreenberg.com.
  27. ^ "IKS-Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie - Joel Meyrowitz Retrospective". Archived from the original on 2017-04-19. Retrieved 2016-07-08.
  28. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz - Retrospektive - KUNST HAUS WIEN. Museum Hundertwasser". Archived from the original on 2017-01-27. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  29. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz Transition Gallery". Howard Greenberg Gallery. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  30. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz," Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/search/artworks?q=%22Joel%20Meyerowitz%22&page=6
  31. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz". International Center of Photography. June 14, 2019.
  32. ^ "Museum of Contemporary Photography". www.mocp.org.
  33. ^ "Joel Meyerowitz | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
  34. ^ "Wallach Prints and Photos Search Results". wallachprintsandphotos.nypl.org.
  35. ^ Defoore, Jay (19 December 2008). "Amon Carter Museum Exhibits '100 Great American Photographs'". Popular Photography. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
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