Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore
Born	October 8, 1947 New York City
Nationality	American
Known for	Photography

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. In 2010, Shore received an Honorary Fellowship from The Royal Photographic Society.

Life and work

Stephen Shore was born as sole son of Jewish parents who ran a handbag company.^[1] He was interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a photographic darkroom kit at age six from a forward-thinking uncle.^[2] 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). Recognizing Shore's talent, Steichen bought three. At seventeen, Shore met Andy Warhol and began to frequent Warhol's studio, the Factory, photographing Warhol and the creative people that surrounded him. In 1971, at the age of 24, Shore became the second living photographer to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^{[n 1]}

Shore then embarked on a series of cross-country 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 4x5" view camera before finally settling on the 8x10 format. In 1974 a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) endowment funded further work, followed in 1975 by a Guggenheim grant and in 1976 a color show at MoMA, NY. His 1982 book, Uncommon Places, was a bible for the new color photographers because, alongside William Eggleston, his work proved that a color photograph, like a painting or even a black and white photograph, could be considered a work of art. Notable photographers Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Martin Parr, Joel Sternfeld and Thomas Struth have acknowledged his influence on their work.

Shore photographed fashion stories for Another Magazine, Elle, Daily Telegraph and many others.^[3] Commissioned by Italian brand Bottega Veneta, he photographed socialite Lydia Hearst-Shaw, 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.

In recent years, Shore has been working in Israel, the West Bank, and Ukraine.^[4]

Publications

Photobooks by Shore

• Uncommon Places. New York: Aperture, 1982. ISBN 0-89381-101-7
• The Gardens at Giverny. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985
• The Velvet Years, Andy Warhol's Factory, 1965–1967. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1995
• Stephen Shore: Photographs 1973–1993. Munich: Schirmer Art Books, 1998
• Uncommon Places: 50 Unpublished Photographs. Düsseldorf: Verlag der Galerie Conrads, 2002
• Uncommon Places: The Complete Works. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004; New York: Aperture, 2004
• American Surfaces.
  • Munich: Schirmer/Mosel: 1999. Contains 77 photographs.
  • London: Phaidon, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2013. ISBN 978-0-714848-63-1. Expanded edition with 312 photographs, an introduction by Bob Nickas and captions.
• Essex County. Portland, OR: Nazraeli Press, 2006
• Witness No.1. Portland, OR: Nazraeli Press, 2007
• Stephen Shore. London: Phaidon, 2007
• A Road Trip Journal. London: Phaidon, 2008
• One Picture Book #43 Merced River. Portland, OR: Nazraeli Press, 2009
• Stephen Shore. Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gallery, 2010
• Stephen Shore: Mose: A Preliminary Report. Berlin: Walther König, 2011
• Stephen Shore: The Hudson Valley. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Blind Spot Series, 2012
• Stephen Shore: From Galilee to the Negev. London: Phaidon, 2014. ISBN 978-0714867069.
• Winslow Arizona. Tokyo: Amana, 2014. ISBN 978-4907519070. Text in English and Japanese.

Other books by Shore

• The Nature of Photographs
  • Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-801857-20-1.
  • London: Phaidon, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7148-5904-0.

Selected exhibitions

• 1976: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY.
• 1978: Rencontres d'Arles, France.
• 2010: Rencontres d'Arles, France.
• 2012: Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow.^[5]
• 2016: Stephen Shore. Retrospective Berlin, C/O Museum.

Awards

Shore receiving Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie's Cultural Award, with Prof. Dr. Nickel (Chairman of DGPh)

• 1974: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
• 1975: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.^[6]
• 2010: Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship.
• 2010: Cultural Award, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh), Germany.^[7][8]

Notes

1. Alfred Stieglitz had been the first. Michael Kimmelman, "Passing Mile Markers, Snapping Pictures", New York Times, May 18, 2007.

References

1. https://newrepublic.com/article/115243/stephen-shore-photography-american-surfaces-uncommon-places
2. Interview with Stephen Shore. Wallpaper*, July 26, 2007.
3. Reuel Golden (December 1, 2010), A Shore thing W.
4. David Frankel, “Steven Shore, 303 Gallery”, Artforum December 2014
5. "Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places". Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow.
6. "Stephen Shore". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
7. "DGPh verleiht den Kulturpreis 2010 an Stephen Shore". Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
8. "The Cultural Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh)". Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie. Retrieved 1 April 2014.

External links

• Stephen Shore's website
• Shore talks about his work at SFMOMA, April 2012.
• Interview with Canadian critic Christopher Brayshaw
• Masters of Photography