Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore: Elements is inspired by the Eakins Press Foundation’s celebrated debut publication, Walker Evans’ Message from the Interior (1966), gathering images from across Evans’ career. As with that book, the photographs of Stephen Shore (born 1947) have been carefully selected to represent the poetry of his approach to the world through photographs. The 24 images (16 color and 8 black and white), from the last of his work with the 8x10" view camera, range in location from New York’s Hudson Valley to the Yucatan, Italy, Texas, Israel and Scotland. As the book’s title suggests, what connects these photographs are the elemental resonances of the earth, humanity and time.

From his early days as a teenager at Andy Warhol’s Factory and his 1971 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (at the time only the second one-person show the museum had ever mounted of a photographer) to his celebrated Uncommon Places (1982), to his current pioneering use of social media platforms and print-on-demand books, Shore has not for a moment let up on his mission to challenge the norms of the photographic medium.

In Stephen Shore: Elements, the Eakins Press Foundation extends its historically important embrace of work by individual artists that represents the highest standard of human achievement in our society.

One of the most influential photographers of our time, Stephen Shore has often been categorized as one of a group of artists of the 1970s who captured American popular culture in straightforward, unglamorous color images. While this is true, it is only part of the story: Shore has worked with many forms of photography, switching from cheap automatic cameras to large format in the 1970s, pioneering the use of color film before returning to black and white in the 1990s, and, in the 2000s, taking up the opportunities offered by digital photography, digital printing and social media.

Published to accompany the first comprehensive survey of Stephen Shore’s work in the US, this catalog reflects the full range of his contribution, including the gelatin silver prints he made as a teenager (and sold to The Museum of Modern Art); his photographs of the scene at Andy Warhol’s Factory, in New York; the color images he made during cross-country road trips in the 1970s; his recent explorations of Israel, the West Bank and Ukraine; and his current work on digital platforms, including Instagram.

This book offers a fresh, kaleidoscopic vision of the artist’s extensive career, presenting more than 400 reproductions arranged in a thematic framework, each grouping accompanied by a short but wide-ranging essay. This unique encyclopedia-style format makes visible the artist’s versatility of technique and the diversity of his output, reflecting his singular vision and uncompromising pursuit of photography’s possibilities.

Stephen Shore (born 1947) was the first living photographer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz (40 years earlier). He has also had solo shows at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1982 he has been the director of the Photography Program at Bard College, New York, where he is the Susan Weber Professor in the Arts.

Quentin Bajac is former Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

David Campany is an artist, writer and Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster, London.

Kristen Gaylord is Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Amon Carter Museum, Texas.

Martino Stierli is the Philip Johnson Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Swiss National Science Foundation Professor at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Art History.