Christmas Tree, NYC, 1964

“Joel Meyerowitz is a contemporary American photographer. Notable as one of color photography’s earliest advocates, he was among the first to create successful color compositions. Meyerowitz’s work is primarily composed of large-format street photographs, capturing fleeting moments of quintessentially American life, culture, and political unrest. Speaking about the role of street photographers in 20th-century art, he observed that “the thought for us was always: ‘How much could we absorb and embrace of a moment of existence that would disappear in an instant?’ And, ‘Could we really make it live as art?” There was an almost moral dimension.” As the only photographer allocated unrestricted access to Ground Zero in Manhattan, he memorably photographed the residual aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, producing an important archive of photographs of the tragedy. Born in the Bronx of New York, NY on March 6, 1938, he went on to graduate from Ohio State University in 1956 and receive widespread acclaim for his work, including being twice named a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as being awarded a Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society in 2012.”

-artnet

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