Joel Meyerowitz

(b New York, 3 June 1938). American photographer. He studied at Ohio State University, Columbus (1956-9), and worked in New York as an advertising art director (1959-63). In 1962 he accompanied Robert Frank on a photographic assignment. Deeply impressed by Frank's work, he taught himself photography, becoming a freelance photographer in 1963. He documented New York streets and interiors with great spontaneity; his characteristic subjects were banal, empty rooms, the occupants either absent or caught unawares, for example a photograph of a woman in a room, Untitled (1966; New York, MOMA). In the late 1960s and early 1970s he was among the first photographers to work successfully in colour, finding new possibilities for nuance and effect, as in Madison Avenue and 60th Street (1976; artist's col., see Turner, ed., p. 235). Meyerowitz taught colour photography at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York (1971-9), and from 1977 at Princeton University, NJ. In 1976-7, using a vintage field camera, he made a painterly photographic essay of Cape Cod, and in 1980 he took a set of powerful photographic studies of the Gateway Arch, St Louis, MO.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Meyerowitz, Joel (b. 1938), American street and landscape photographer. After a streetwise upbringing in the Bronx, he studied painting and medical illustration. An encounter with Robert Frank encouraged him to drop his job as an advertising art director for photography. He spent 1962-5 with Garry Winogrand working the New York streets, especially Fifth Avenue which, he recalled, ‘had the pulse of life, the most vigour, the most beautiful women, the heaviest business action. The mix was best on Fifth.’ (He described this frantic bohemian period in the book he wrote with Colin Westerbeck, Bystander: A History of Street Photography (1994). ) In the 1970s he turned increasingly to colour, becoming one of its leading exponents in American art photography. His pace also slowed. In 1976 he embarked on a project on Cape Cod, using a heavy view camera and achieving haunting twilight effects with long exposures (Cape Light: Color Photographs, 1978). In 1978 he was commissioned to photograph Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St Louis. However, his career has largely been spent in New York, and after the attacks of 11 September 2001 he received privileged access to ‘Ground Zero’ during the clearing operations.

— Robin Lenman

Bibliography

• Westerbeck, C., Joel Meyerowitz (2001)

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Joel Meyerowitz in 2004

Joel Meyerowitz (born in 1938,the Bronx New York City) is a street photographer who 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 70's he taught the first color course at Cooper Union^{[citation needed]} where many of today's renowned color photographers studied with him. He made a significant change to large format color photography in 1976, and along with Stephen Shore and William Eggleston became the first group of young artists to use color exclusively.^{[citation needed]} Their work, seen and published in America and Europe, influenced the next generation's, particularly the young German artists', turn toward using color in photography. He is the author of 16 books including the seminal^{[citation needed]} book, Cape Light. Meyerowitz often uses an 8x10 large format camera to produce photographs of places and people.

Meyerowitz graduated from Ohio State University in 1959 with a degree in painting and medical illustration. Inspired by Robert Frank's book The Americans and by the work of Garry Winogrand, Meyerowitz took to the streets with a 35mm camera and black and white film. He also drew inspiration from Eugene Atget, whence the seeds of his most renowned work were planted. "In the pantheon of greats there is Robert Frank and there is Atget." Meyerowitz goes on to say that "those two visions of the world captivated me early on, opened me up."^{[citation needed][original research?]}

Meyerowitz has published a photographic archive of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, and was the only photographer allowed unrestricted access to ground zero immediately following the attack.^[1] A number of these images have since been made into a book, Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive, published by Phaidon Press.^[2]

Joel Meyerowitz had extensive appearance in 2006 BBC Four documentary The Genius Of Photography[1].

His photograph, "New York City, 1963," is used by permission in Taking Back Sunday's third album, Louder Now.

Awards

Meyerowitz is a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities awards.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Joel Meyerowitz: Photographer, Biography". Joel Meyerowitz. http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/photography/biography.html. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 
2. ^ Coleman, Sarah (undated). "Picturing Ground Zero" (jsp). Photo District News. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/cp/olympus/feature/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003020408. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 

External links

• Coleman, Sarah (undated). "Wild in the City" (jsp). Photo District News. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/cp/olympus/feature/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003020408. Retrieved 2007-10-16. 

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