Emmet Gowin
In EMMET GOWIN, a retrospective from 1967 to the present, we come to know and appreciate the retired Princeton University professor's singular vision. What began as an intimate love story between two people broadens to embrace the natural world. Yet, the intimacy of his family portraits never diminishes. (Joanne CiccarelloThe Christian Science Monitor2013-12-20)An in-depth look at one of America's most overlooked photographers. (Sean O'HaganThe Guardian2013-12-07)Beautifully understated design, great printing and solid scholarship. (Alec SothThe Telegraph2013-12-05)" My age now is 25 and I have been photographing for almost six years. From the beginning I wanted to make pictures so potent that I would not need to say anything about them": This is how Emmet Gowin began the artist's statement for his graduate thesis project in 1967. He went on to career producing images full of beauty, mystery and spirituality. Fundacion Mapfre mounted a retrospective of Gowin's work in Madrid earlier this year, and issued this catalogue with the richly reproduced images. The book includes much analysis, at times over-wrought. But it also includes the transcript of a talk Gowin gave in 2009 when he retired from teaching at Princeton University after 36 years. What he had to say was engaging, insightful and inspiring. The catalogue traces the full arc of his career, starting with his earliest images of his wife and muse, Edith, and her extended family in Danville, Virginia. Gowin's artistic collaboration with his wife is at the root of all of his work. It was through Edith that he found his voice as an artist, and he had her in mind when he concluded the 1967 artist's statement by writing, " For me, pictures provide a means of holding, intensely, a moment of communication between one human and another." (David WalkerPDN2013-12-01)A beautiful and long awaited monograph of quiet and intimate influence from a master photographer and teacher Emmet Gowin-whose writing is as eloquent and profound as his images are beautiful and sincere. (Phil BickerTIME Lightbox2013-11-25)A beautiful and long awaited monograph of quiet and intimate influence from a master photographer and teacher Emmet Gowin-whose writing is as eloquent and profound as his images are beautiful and sincere. (Phil BickerTIME2013-11-25)This catalog showcases Gowin's brilliant versatility, from intimate studies of his wife and family to aerial shots of environ - mental woes to more recent abstract composites. (Jack CragerAmerican Photo2013-11-01)