Joel Meyerowitz

Dedicated to one of the great figures of contemporary photography, this selection of over 90 images explores the most significant moments in the career of Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938), from his early images of the 1960s to his more recent work. It is divided into thematic chapters analyzing Meyerowitz's photographic series, from his evocative still lifes to the tragedy of 9/11; his sociological research which helped redefine the concept of street photography; and his conceptually provocative images reflecting American individualism during the Vietnam War. Meyerowitz's photography favors precise humanistic insight. With his calm and methodical reading of our reality, he reminds us of how photography can be a tool for reflection on the experiences of both the individual and society—a way of appreciating the present in all its aspects.

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.

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.

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.

This new and expanded edition of Joel Meyerowitz’s widely acclaimed 1983 photobook Wild Flowers features new and unpublished images, and a larger format. For nearly 50 years Meyerowitz has tended his visual garden in the streets, parks and cities that he has visited or lived in. He goes into the streets wide-eyed and passionate, carrying a machine ideally suited to the task of taking it all in.

One day, while editing, Meyerowitz stumbled upon a small group of photographs featuring flowers, which he had accumulated without realizing. He began to see that this innocent premise might serve to bring together a variety of his other photographic interests. Thus Wild Flowers was born. With a unique sense of visual humor and an unmatched attention to detail, Meyorowitz invites readers to see the natural beauty in the busy city landscape.

Born in the Bronx in 1938, Joel Meyerowitz is best known for his extensive street photography practice. He began capturing everyday scenes on the streets of New York in 1962 and was an early adopter of color film for the genre, advocating for its use when many self-serious career photographers resisted its popularization. He has published 35 books.

This limited edition of 25 copies includes an 8 x 10" print signed and numbered by Joel Meyerowitz.

In 1966 and 1967, color photography pioneer Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) traveled across Spain taking hundreds of pictures that together comprise a remarkable document of 1960s Spain. At this time he was taking photographs both in color and black and white, but this period in Spain marked a creative turning point in the photographer’s career, and from 1972 onward, following the completion of this body of work, he would only photograph in color.

Joel Meyerowitz: Out of the Darkness brings together some 100 images of this pivotal trip, which are divided across four thematic chapters —"State," "Street," "From the Car" and "Flamenco"— and includes texts by Francesco Zanot and Miguel López-Remiro, as well as an interview between Meyerowitz and Nuria Enguita, the director of Bombas Gens in Valencia.

Some years ago, while working on a book commission about Provence, Joel Meyerowitz visited Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence. While there, he experienced a flash of understanding about Cézanne’s art. Cézanne 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 Cézanne, 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, Cézanne was the original voice of “flatness.”

Meyerowitz decided to take each of the objects in Cézanne’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 Cézanne’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 Cézanne’s methods.

Published in a limited edition of 25 copies, this elegant boxed volume presents Joel Meyerowitz’ masterful color photographs of Cézanne’s atelier and its objects, and includes a photograph signed and numbered by the artist.

Published with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

Alongside William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Mitch Epstein, New York–born and bred Joel Meyerowitz is one of the most important representatives of the New Color Photography movement of the 1960s and 70s. This retrospective traces his entire oeuvre, from his street photography to his light experimentations made during "the blue hour" in Cape Cod, and includes famous series such as Cape Light, After September 11: Images from Ground Zero, Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, in addition to the artist's much-loved early work—his first trip to Europe in 1967, and his concurrent transition from black and white to color—which has been much less widely published. Though Meyerowitz admired Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, and shares their uncanny ability to grasp a human being on the street as both an individual and a representative of a larger social context, his handling of space and composition consciously differs from that of his idols, his framing less synchronized, the moments he captures, interestingly, less perfect. This square hardback volume compiles the artist's iconic images, and is an essential addition to any photography book collection.

Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the world. The New York native began photographing the streets in 1962 and by the mid-60s became an early advocate of color photography who was instrumental in transforming a general resistance to color film into an almost universal acceptance.