Emmet Gowin

Throughout his prolific career as a photographer, Emmet Gowin has threaded together seemingly disparate subjects: his wife, Edith, and their extended family; American and European landscapes; aerial views of environmental devastation, brought together by his ongoing interest in issues of scale, the impact of the individual, and notions of belonging.

This long-awaited survey pays tribute to Gowin’s remarkable career and his impact on the medium. Following his marriage to Edith Morris in 1964, Gowin began work on a series of images of his extended family that is now recognized as a touchstone of twentieth-century American photography. He photographed the children and the aging parents, and made intimate portraits of his wife, continuing a photographic tradition inherited from his mentor, Harry Callahan, with whom he studied in the 1960s. His focus broadened in the 1980s, when he began an exploration of landscape and aerial photography, most specifically in his documentation of Mount St. Helens and the American West. He has photographed in the Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, Japan and the United States, with a continued interest in irrigation, mining and natural resources, and the effects of military testing on the environment. As a photography professor at Princeton University from 1973 to 2009, Gowin has exerted a powerful influence on several generations of photographers.

Copublished by Aperture and Fundación MAPFRE

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 240
Publication date: 2013-10-31
Measurements: 9.8 x 11.3 x 1.3 inches
ISBN: 9781597112611

This catalog showcases Gowin’s brilliant versatility, from intimate studies of his wife and family to aerial shots of environmental woes to more recent abstract composites. –American Photo

An in-depth look at one of America’s most overlooked photographers. –The Guardian

provides a thorough examination of his creative practice as it evolved over nearly five decades…The images range from memorable documents of his wife’s family in rural Virginia to aerial landscapes of Earth. –The New York Times

Gowin’s images of his wife manage to combine reverie and reality, veneration and humility. –The Guardian

Emmet Gowin earned his MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967, after studying graphic design as an undergraduate. His black-and-white photographs have been exhibited in the United States and abroad, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Corcorcan Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Escape Photographie Marie de Paris. Gowin’s work is included in major museum collections worldwide; he has published more than six monographs; and he has been awarded several honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Pew Fellowship for the Arts, and the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Keith F. Davis is senior curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and also serves as an advisor to the Hall Family Foundation.
Carlos Gollonet is the chief curator of photography at the MAPFRE Foundation in Madrid and also works as a freelance editor and publisher.