Joel Meyerowitz: Cape Light

About

The subject of 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide and two-time Guggenheim Fellow, Meyerowitz is one of the most highly regarded photographers of the second half of the twentieth century. Alongside William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, he drove the repositioning of colour photography from the margins to the mainstream. Timed to coincide with the recent re-release of Cape Light by the Aperture Foundation, the exhibition will be the first time an extensive selection of the series has been shown in London.

Meyerowitz's first book of photographs, originally published in 1978, Cape Light depicts the coast and small towns of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Taken with Meyerowitz's vintage 8 x 10 Deardoff view camera, the photographs meditate on the colour, light and scale of the landscape. In contrast to the chaotic scenes of his famous street photography, Cape Light features serene, luminous landscapes that consider colour as a sensorial, evocative experience.

Speaking about his move into colour photography, Meyerowitz has said that colour "describes more things". Continuing, he explained, "when I say description, I don't mean mere fact and the cold accounting of things in the frame. I really mean the sensation I get from things their surface and colour my memory of them in other conditions as well as their connotative qualities. Colour plays itself out along a richer band of feelings more wavelengths, more radiance, more sensation." Since its publication, Cape Light has sold over 150,000 copies and become one of the most influential photobooks of the last century.

Born on 6 March 1938 in New York City, Meyerowitz studied painting and medical drawing at Ohio State University before working as an art director at an advertising agency. Having seen Robert Frank at work, Meyerowitz was inspired and left advertising in 1962 to pursue photography. He first shot on the streets of New York alongside Garry Winogrand and Tony Ray-Jones, and in 1968 a solo exhibition of his photograph was mounted at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Meyerowitz is known for photographing the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre, being the only photographer allowed access to the site. The recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities awards, Meyerowitz has published sixteen books. He lives and works in New York.