Oral history interview with Emmet Gowin
name: label: Interviewee
content: Gowin, Emmet, 1941-
label: Interviewer
content: Goodyear, Frank H., III, 1967-
topic: label: Topic
content: Educators -- New Jersey -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Photographers -- Pennsylvania -- Interviews
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Gowin, Emmet, 1941-
label: Interviewer
content: Goodyear, Frank H., III, 1967-
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Emmet Gowin (1941- ) is an educator and photographer in Newtown, Pa. Gowin photographed Edith and Rennie Booher and extended family.
label: Biographical / Historical
content: Frank H. Goodyear (1967- ) is the associate curator of photographs with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 7 Items (Sound recording, master: 7 memory cards (6 hr., 3 min.), secure digital, 1.25 in.)
label: Extent
content: 81 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2010 May 13-14
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.gowin10
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: This interview was audited and edited by Erin Dickey.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Emmet Gowin conducted 2010 May 13 and 14, by Frank Goodyear, for the Archvies of American Art, at the Gowins' home in Danville, Virginia.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Gowin speaks of his upbringing and how he decided to become a Quaker; his relationship with his sister, who had Down Syndrome; growing up in Chincoteague, VA and other Virginia towns; going to business school in Richmond; meeting his wife Edith; transitioning from Richmond Professional Institute to work with Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design; learning different techniques of printing pictures; studying with Frederick Sommer; the making and reception of his early family photographs of Edith, the Boohers, and his children; other photographic projects including the Mount St. Helens eruption, photographs in the Middle East, Europe, and South America, nuclear test sites in the western U.S., and his collection of moths; teaching at Princeton University; his attitude toward Postmodernism; how the Light Gallery began; and his artistic influences, including Callahan, Sommer, Robert Frank, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Eugéne Atget, Hercules Seghers, William Blake, and others. Gowin also recalls Peter Bunnell, Grant Gentry, Fazal Sheikh, Peter McGill, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Elaine Pagels, and others.