I put up a Gowin photo on the side of my section printer at work, (the one of Nancy, 1969, holding two eggs, her arms entwined and her eyes closed - see earlier post here). I think that sort of 'mystical' or poetic image had become pretty dated a long time ago but nevertheless I knew it wasn't simply a feeling of nostalgia putting it up, it was unmistakably transcendent - a quality that leaps off the image in a way that perhaps Hiroshi Sugimoto, with his minimal and oh so discretely (deniably?) spiritual, can only dream of, or be afraid of.
I think I have a 70's photo-book somewhere with a set of Gowin's 'snapshots' of his family in (including of Edith, below, soon after they were married), I liked them but never followed his career. At that time he seemed just one more tender humanist photographer with a good eye and quick reflexes. Funnily enough, like Harry Callahan, one of his teachers, I under-rated not only his searing perceptiveness but also his sheer creative determination and range. I'm happy to find that Emmet Gowin is still alive and clicking - and actually showing his work at this moment in America.
Exhibition: FRI APR 19 2013 — SAT JUL 27 2013 link
I think I have a 70's photo-book somewhere with a set of Gowin's 'snapshots' of his family in (including of Edith, below, soon after they were married), I liked them but never followed his career. At that time he seemed just one more tender humanist photographer with a good eye and quick reflexes. Funnily enough, like Harry Callahan, one of his teachers, I under-rated not only his searing perceptiveness but also his sheer creative determination and range. I'm happy to find that Emmet Gowin is still alive and clicking - and actually showing his work at this moment in America.
Exhibition: FRI APR 19 2013 — SAT JUL 27 2013 link