Stephen Shore
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include Uncommon Places (1982) and American Surfaces (1999), photographs that he took on cross-country road trips in the 1970s.
Life and work
Shore was born as sole son of Jewish parents who ran a handbag company. He was interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a Kodak Junior darkroom set for his sixth birthday from a forward-thinking uncle. He began to use a 35 mm camera three years later and made his first color photographs. At ten he received a copy of Walker Evans's book, American Photographs, which influenced him greatly. His career began at fourteen, when he presented his photographs to Edward Steichen, then curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Recognizing Shore's talent, Steichen bought three black and white photographs of New York City. At sixteen, Shore met Andy Warhol and began to frequent Warhol's studio, the Factory, photographing Warhol and the creative people that surrounded him. In 1971, he was the first living photographer to be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with a show of black and white, sequential images.
Shore then embarked on a series of cross-country road trips, making "on the road" photographs of American and Canadian landscapes. In 1972, he made the journey from Manhattan to Amarillo, Texas, that provoked his interest in color photography. Viewing the streets and towns he passed through, he conceived the idea to photograph them in color, first using 35 mm hand-held camera and then a 4×5" view camera before finally settling on the 8×10 format. The change to a large format camera is believed to have happened because of a conversation with John Szarkowski. In 1974 a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant funded further work, followed in 1975 by a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Along with others, especially William Eggleston, Shore is recognized as one of the leading photographers who established color photography as an art form. His book Uncommon Places (1982) was influential for new color photographers of his own and later generations. Photographers who have acknowledged his influence on their work include Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Martin Parr, Joel Sternfeld and Thomas Struth.
Shore photographed fashion stories for Another Magazine, Elle, Daily Telegraph and many others. Commissioned by Italian brand Bottega Veneta, he photographed socialite Lydia Hearst, filmmaker Liz Goldwyn and model Will Chalker for the brand's spring/summer 2006 advertisements.
Shore has been the director of the photography department at Bard College since 1982.
His American Surfaces series, a travel diary made between 1972 and 1973 with photographs of "friends he met, meals he ate, toilets he sat on", was not published until 1999, then again in 2005.
In recent years, Shore has been working in Israel, the West Bank, and Ukraine.
Pages linking in as of May 2021
1947 in the United States, 1947, 303 Gallery, A, A Novel, Aesthetica, Alec Soth, Allan Porter, Andy Warhol, Aperture (magazine), Araminta de Clermont, Arion Press, Artur Walther, Bernhard Fuchs, C/O Berlin, Canteen (magazine), Cavedweller (film), Center for Photography at Woodstock, Chromogenic print, Color photography, Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, David Campany, David Shama, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Documenta 6, Doug Aitken, Doug Rickard (photographer), Draft:Edwynn Houk Gallery, Draft:Michael Grieve (photographer), Drew Heitzler, Éditions Xavier Barral, Exit (magazine), Frédéric Brenner, Galerie Kamel Mennour, German Society for Photography, Gilles Mora, Guinevere Van Seenus, Hilla Becher, Janelle Lynch, Jeff Wassmann, JH Engström, Joel Meyerowitz, John Ashbery, John Harding (photographer), John Myers (photographer), Keith A. Smith, Ken Miller (curator), Large format, Lisa Kereszi, List of photographers, List of W cover models, Lucie Awards, Lynne Tillman, Martin Kollár, Martin Parr, Marvin Heiferman, Max's Kansas City, Michael Cooper (photographer), Nazraeli Press, New Topographics, Nick Waplington, NRW Forum, October 1947, October 8, On the Road, Paul America, Paul Reas, Peter Kayafas, Peter MacGill, Phaidon Press, Photo London, Pier 24 Photography, Rag & Bone, Road trip, Robert Adams (photographer), Rosalind Fox Solomon, Sprüth Magers, Stephen Shaw, Svea Josephy, The Factory, This Place (art project), Todd Hido, Walther Collection, Wanderlust (2006 film), Xaviera Simmons, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Yishay Garbasz, Zodiac (film)
