Emmet Gowin
Emmet Gowin | |
---|---|
Born | Emmet Gowin 1941 |
Known for | Photography |
Spouse | Edith Morris |
Emmet Gowin (born 1941) is an American photographer.[1][2][3][4] He first gained attention in the 1970s with his intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and her family. Later he turned his attention to the landscapes of the American West, taking aerial photographs of places that had been changed by humans or nature, including the Hanford Site, Mount St. Helens, and the Nevada Test Site. Gowin taught at Princeton University for more than 35 years.
Life and career
Gowin was born in
After graduating from high school he attended the
Some of his earliest photographic vision was inspired by Edith's large and engaging family, who allowed him to record what he called "a family freshly different from my own."[7] He said "I wanted to pay attention to the body and personality that had agreed out of love to reveal itself."[7] In 1965, Gowin attended the
Gowin was invited by Peter Bunnell in 1973 to teach photography at Princeton University. Over the next 25 years he both taught new students and, by his own admission, continually learned from those he taught. At the end of each academic year he asked his students to contribute one photograph to a portfolio that was open to critique by all of the students; he intentionally included one of his own photographs as a reminder that, while a teacher, "he was just another humble student of art."[6]
Gowin received a
In 1980 Gowin received a scholarship from the
In 1982 the Gowins were invited by Queen Noor of Jordan, who had studied with Gowin at Princeton, to photograph historic places in her country. He traveled there over the next three years and took a series of photographs of the archaeological site at Petra. The prints he made of these images were the first time he introduced photographic print toning in his work.
Gowin retired from teaching at Princeton University at the end of 2009[8] and lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Edith.
Style and aesthetics
Gowin has acknowledged that the photographs of
Most of his early family pictures were taken with a 4×5 camera on a tripod, a situation in which he said "both the sitter and photographer look at each other, and what they both see and feel is part of the picture."[9] These photos feel both posed and highly intimate at the same time, often capturing seemingly long and direct stares from his wife or her family members or appearing to intrude on a personal family moment. Gowin once said that "the coincidence of the many things that fit together to make a picture is singular. They occur only once. They never occur for you in quite the same way that they occur for someone else, so that in the tiny differences between them you can reemploy a model or strategy that someone else has used and still reproduce an original picture. Those things that do have a distinct life of their own strike me as being things coming to you out of life itself."[10]
In an essay for the catalog for an exhibition of his work at Yale University, writer Terry Tempest Williams said "Emmet Gowin has captured on film the state of our creation and, conversely, the beauty of our losses. And it is full of revelations."[11]
Publications
- Emmet Gowin: Photographs. Emmet Gowin. New York: Knopf, 1976. ISBN 978-3865218636.)
- emmet gowin. Photographs: 1966-1983. Peter Bunnell and Emmet Gowin. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1983 ASIN B000V9QR20. Exhibition also at Princeton University Art Museum Spring 1984.
- Petra. In the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Emmet Gowin. Essay by Phillip C. Hammond. New York: Pace/MacGill Gallery, 1986 ISBN 978-0938608509. Exhibition.
- Emmet Gowin: Photographs. Emmet Gowin. Introduction by Martha Chahroudi. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990. ISBN 0821218352. Exhibition.
- Aerial Photographs. Emmet Gowin. Princeton: ISBN 978-0943012247. Exhibition.
- Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth: aerial photographs. Emmet Gowin and Jock Reynolds. Essay and interview by ISBN 0300093616. Exhibition.
- Emmet Gowin, Photographs: 1967-2000. Tokyo: Nihon University, 2004. Exhibition.
- Mariposas Nocturna ‒ Edith in Panama. Emmet Gowin. New York: Pace/MacGill Gallery, 2006. ASIN B000ESRE4I. Pace/MacGill Gallery exhibition.
- Maggie. Coauthored with Elijah Gowin. Introduction by Edith Gowin. Kansas City: Tin Roof Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-615-21282-1.
- Emmet Gowin: A Collective Portrait. Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 2009. ISBN 094301204X. Exhibition.
- Emmet Gowin. Carlos Gollonet, ISBN 978-1597112611. (Emmet Gowin's World by Carlos Gollonet; Where Pictures Come From: Sources of Emmet Gowin's Vision by Keith F. Davis; Things Only You Will See by Emmet Gowin; Chronology by Carlos Martin Garcia; as well as uncredited, List of Works.) Exhibition.
- Hidden Likeness: Photographer Emmet Gowin at the Morgan. Emmet Gowin and Joel Smith. New York: ISBN 978-0875981703Publication includes plates, interview, and Exhibition Checklist. Exhibition May 22 through September 20, 2015.
- A Shared Elegy. Elijah Gowin - Emmet Gowin/ Osamu James Nakagawa - Takayuki Ogawa. Nanette Esseck Brewer, Joel Smith, and Yoshiko Suzuki. Bloomington : Grunwald Gallery of Art, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2017. ISBN 978-0253032515Exhibition Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University Bloomington October 13- November 16, 2017.
- Mariposas Nocturnas: Moths of Central and South America, A Study in Beauty and Diversity. Emmet Gowin and Terry Tempest Williams. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0691176895. (Foreward/ Winged Resistance by Terry Tempest Williams; Mariposas Nocturnas/ Index Plates (fifty-one, each with twenty-five "moth portraits," identifications on facing page) by Emmet Gowin; An Afterword/ Notes from the Field -- Here on Earth Now by Emmet Gowin; Acknowledgements by Emmet Gowin ; and An Alphabetical List of Species Names.)
- Here on Earth Now: Notes from the Field. Emmet Gowin. Afterword by ISBN 978-0692946732. Exhibition at Pace/MacGill Gallery.
- The Nevada Test Site. Emmet Gowin. Foreword by ISBN 978-0691196039.
Exhibitions
- PhotoEspaña festival, Madrid, 2013[12]
References
- ^ "Emmet Gowin". International Center of Photography. 31 January 2018. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
- ^ Moroz, Sarah (29 May 2014). "Emmet Gowin: 'Everyone thought my photographs were incestuous'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
- ^ "Search The Collection". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
- ^ "Emmet Gowin - MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
- ^ a b c d Fukii, Akira (2004). Emmet Gowin, Photographs: 1967-2000. Tokyo: Nihon University. pp. 9–14.
- ^ a b c Noden, Merrell. "Finding a Place: Emmet Gowin, A portrait of the artist". Retrieved 2012-11-21.
- ^ a b c d Gowin, Emmet (1976). Photographs. NY: Knopf. pp. 99–101.
- ^ "HIS ART IMITATES SCIENCE - AND LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER EMMET GOWIN'S SHOW AT THE ART MUSEUM REVEALS A DEEP COMMITMENT TO HIS FAMILY AND HIS WORK". 1990-12-12. Retrieved 2012-11-15.
- ^ Gowin, Emmet (1974). "Photographs/Emmet Gowin". Aperture. 16 (2): unpaged.
- ^ Quoted to Jock Reynolds, ‘’Changing the Earth’’, p 137
- ^ Williams, Terry Tempest (2002). Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 131.
- ^ "Portraits of women – by the men who loved them". The Guardian. 19 June 2013. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
External links
- Yale University Art Gallery/ Artists, Exhibition Catalogues, Photography/ Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth by Jock Reynolds
- Fundación MAPFRE: "Gowin, Emmet: Nacimiento: Virginia, 1941..." (text in Spanish)
- Fundación MAPFRE: Exposiciones 2013: Videos "Emmet y Edith Gowin, una conversación." Primera/Segunda partes (conversation in English, subtitles in Spanish)
- Princeton University Press "Mariposas Nocturnas" video "Q&A with author Emmet Gowin" (YouTube 2:24)