Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore (born 1947 in New York City) is an American photographer best known as a pioneer of color photography.

Stephen Shore was interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a photographic darkroom kit at age six. He began to use a 35mm 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 the early age of fourteen, when he made the precocious move of presenting his photographs to Edward Steichen, then curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. Recognizing Shore's talent, Steichen bought three of his works. At age 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 first living photographer to have a one-man show at MoMA.

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 as a car passenger from Manhattan to Amarillo, Texas that provoked his interest in colour photography. Viewing the streets and towns they passed through, he conceived the idea to photograph them in color, using a 8x10" view camera. In 1974 an 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.

Books of his photographs include Uncommon Places; Uncommon Places: 50 Unpublished Photographs; Essex County; The Gardens at Giverny; Stephen Shore: Photographs 1973 - 1993; and The Velvet Years, Andy Warhol's Factory, 1965 - 1967. In 1998, Johns Hopkins University Press published The Nature of Photographs, a book he wrote about how photographs function visually. Most recently, Aperture has published Uncommon Places: The Complete Work and Phaidon has published American Surfaces.

He is represented by 303 Gallery in New York, Sprüth Magers Lee in London, Sprüth Magers, Cologne and Munich and Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels.

Currently, Shore is the director of the Photography department at Bard College, a position he has held since 1982.

Bibliography

• Uncommon Places
• Uncommon Places: 50 Unpublished Photographs
• Essex County
• The Gardens at Giverny
• Stephen Shore: Photographs 1973 - 1993
• The Velvet Years, Andy Warhol's Factory, 1965 - 1967
• American Surfaces
• The Nature of Photographs

External links

• Shore's artist statement from Uncommon Places
• American Surfaces at PS1, 2005
• Photography program at Bard College