Mitchell Epstein (born 1952) is an American fine-art photographer, among the first to make significant use of color. His books include ''Property Rights'' (2021), ''In India'' (2021), ''Sunshine Hotel'' (2019), ''Rocks and Clouds'' (2018), ''New York Arbor'', (2013) ''Berlin'' (2011); ''American Power'' (2009); ''Mitch Epstein: Work'' ( 2006); ''Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988'' (2005); and ''Family Business'' (2003), which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award.
Epstein's work has been exhibited and published extensively in the United States and Europe, and collected by numerous major museums, including New York's
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
and
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, The
J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...
in Los Angeles, the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
, and the
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
in London.
He has also worked as a director, cinematographer, and production designer on several films, including ''Dad'', ''
Salaam Bombay!
''Salaam Bombay!'' is a 1988 Indian Hindi-language drama film, directed, co-written and co-produced by Mira Nair. The screenwriter was Nair's creative collaborator Sooni Taraporevala. This was the first feature film directed by Nair. The film ...
'', and ''
Mississippi Masala
''Mississippi Masala'' is a 1991 romantic drama film directed by Mira Nair, based upon a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, starring Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, and Roshan Seth. Set primarily in rural Mississippi, the film explores ...
.''
Early life and education
Epstein was born and raised in a Jewish family in
Holyoke
Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,238. Located north of Springfield ...
, Massachusetts. He graduated from
Williston Academy
Williston Northampton School (simply referred to as Williston) is a Independent school, private, Mixed-sex education, co-educational, Day school, day and Boarding school, boarding college-preparatory school in Easthampton, Massachusetts, United S ...
, where he studied with artist and bookmaker
Barry Moser. In the early 1970s he studied at
Union College
Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...
, New York;
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
, Rhode Island, and the
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...
, New York, where he was a student of photographer
Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand (January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Wino ...
.
[Woodward, Richard B]
Mitch Epstein.
''Bomb Magazine'', October 2009. Accessed 1 February 2010.[Sikkema Jenkins & Co]
Accessed 1 February 2010.
Career
By the mid-1970s, Epstein had abandoned his academic studies and begun to travel, embarking on a photographic exploration of the United States. Ten of the photographs he made during this period were in a 1977 group exhibition at Light Gallery in New York. Ben Lifson wrote in his ''Village Voice'' review: "Mitch Epstein's ten color photographs are the best things at Summer Light…. At 25, Epstein's apprenticeship is over, as his work shows. He stands between artistic tradition and originality and makes pictures about abandoned rocking-horses and danger, about middle-age dazzled by spring blossoms, about children confused by sex and beasts. He has learned the terms of black-and-white photography, and although he adds color, he hasn't abandoned them, loving photography's past while trying to step into its future."
In 1978, he journeyed to India with his future wife, director
Mira Nair
Mira Nair (born 15 October 1957) is an Indian-American filmmaker based in New York City. Her production company, Mirabai Films, specializes in films for international audiences on Indian society, whether in the economic, social or cultural spher ...
, where he was a producer, set designer, and cinematographer on several films, including ''
Salaam Bombay!
''Salaam Bombay!'' is a 1988 Indian Hindi-language drama film, directed, co-written and co-produced by Mira Nair. The screenwriter was Nair's creative collaborator Sooni Taraporevala. This was the first feature film directed by Nair. The film ...
'' and ''India Cabaret''. His book ''In Pursuit of India'' is a compilation of his Indian photographs from this period.
From 1992 to 1995, Epstein photographed in Vietnam, which resulted in an exhibition of this work at Wooster Gardens in New York, along with a book titled ''Vietnam: A Book of Changes.'' "I don't know that Mitch Epstein's glorious photographs record all of what is salient in end-of-the-twentieth century Vietnam," wrote Susan Sontag for his book jacket, "for it's been more than two decades since my two stays there. I can testify that his images confirm what moved and troubled me then…and offer shrewd and poignant glimpses into the costs of imposing a certain modernity. This is beautiful, authoritative work by an extremely intelligent and gifted photographer." Reviewing an exhibition of the Vietnam pictures for Art in America, Peter Von Ziegesar writes, "In a show full of small pleasures, little prepares one for the stunning epiphany contained in ''Perfume Pagoda''…Few photographers have managed to make an image so loaded and so beautiful at once."
![Mitch Epstein-Nina Subin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Mitch_Epstein-Nina_Subin.jpg)
Having lived and traveled beyond the United States for over a decade, Epstein began to spend more time in his adopted home of New York City. His 1999 series ''The City'' investigated the relationship between public and private life in New York. Reviewing ''The City'' exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins in New York, Vince Aletti wrote that the pictures "
reas assured as they are ambitious."
In 1999, Epstein returned to his hometown of
Holyoke, Massachusetts, to record the demise of his father's two businesses—a retail furniture store and a low-rent real estate empire. The resulting project assembled large-format photographs, video, archival materials, interviews and writing by the artist. The book, ''Family Business'', which combined all of these elements, won the 2004 Kraszna-Kraus Best Photography Book of the Year award.
In reviewing the book, Nancy Princenthal wrote in Art in America, "The family business chronicled by Mitch Epstein was a small-town retail furniture with a sideline in real estate, and his patiently plotted bell curve of its history is worthy of Dreiser…." In 2004, his work was exhibited during evening screenings at
Rencontres d'Arles
The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historia ...
festival (at the Théatre Antique), France.
From 2004 to 2009, Epstein investigated energy production and consumption in the United States, photographing in and around various energy production sites. This series, titled ''American Power'', questions the meaning and make-up of power—electrical and political. Epstein made a monograph of the American Power pictures (2009), in which he wrote that he was often stopped by corporate security guards and once interrogated by the FBI for standing on public streets and pointing his camera at energy infrastructure. The large-scale prints from this series have been exhibited worldwide.
In his Art in America review, Dave Coggins wrote that Epstein "grounds his images…in the human condition, combining empathy with sharp social observation, politics with sheer beauty." In an essay for the catalogue ''Contemporary African Photography from
The Walther Collection
The Walther Collection is a private non-profit organization dedicated to researching, collecting, exhibiting, and publishing modern and contemporary photography and video art. The collection has two exhibition spaces: the Walther Collection in N ...
: Appropriated Landscapes'' (Steidl, 2011), Brian Wallis wrote, "Epstein has made clear that his intention is neither to illustrate political events nor to create persuasive propaganda. Rather, he raises the more challenging question of how inherently abstract political concepts about the nation and the culture as a whole can be represented photographically…But equally significant is the unique form of documentary storytelling that he has invented in ''American Power''—colorful, sweeping, concerned, intimate, honest." In the New York Times, Martha Schwendener wrote: "What is interesting, beyond the haunting, complicated beauty and precision of these images, is Mr. Epstein's ability to merge what have long been considered opposing terms: photo-conceptualism and so-called documentary photography. He utilizes the supersize scale and saturated color of conceptualism, and his odd, implied narratives strongly recall the work of artists like Jeff Wall."
In 2008, Epstein won the Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters from the
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
.
Awarded a 6-month residency, he moved to Berlin with his wife and daughter from January–June 2008. The photographs he made there of significant historical sites were published in the monograph ''Berlin'' (Steidl and The American Academy in Berlin, 2011).
In 2009, Epstein collaborated with his second wife, author Susan Bell, on a public art project and website based on ''American Power.'' ''The What Is American Power?'' project used billboards, transportation posters, and a website to "inspire and educate people about environmental issues."
[
In 2013, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis commissioned Epstein and cellist ]Erik Friedlander
Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City.
A veteran of New York City's experimental downtown scene, Friedlander has worked in many contexts, but is perhaps best known for his frequent collaborations with sax ...
to create a theatrical performance of ''American Power'', which premiered at the Walker and, in 2015, traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio and The Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
in London. Created in collaboration with directors Annie-B Parson
Annie-B Parson is an American choreographer, dancer, and director based in Brooklyn, New York. Parson is notable for her work in dance/theater, post-modern dance, and art pop music. Parson is the Artistic Director of Brooklyn's Big Dance Theater ...
and Paul Lazar, this theatrical rendition of Epstein's photographic series combines projected photographs, archival material, video, music, and storytelling.
For his recent New York trilogy, ''New York Arbor'' and ''Rocks and Clouds'', Epstein photographed the city's trees, rocks, and clouds with an 8x10 view camera and black and white film to depict the interplay between society and nature: "Epstein's trees extend the photographer's longstanding interest in mankind's disruption of our environment," writes Rob Slifkin, "...his new work typically addresses this theme of human engagement with nature without recourse to the inclusion of actual people. Instead it is the way the human environment clumsily perches itself upon and amidst the natural world that defines Epstein's approach to landscape."
Recent solo exhibitions of Epstein's work were at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (2019), Yancey Richardson Gallery (2016), Galerie Thomas Zander (2016 & 2019), The A Foundation, Brussels (2013), Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation (French: ''Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson''), also known as Fondation HCB, is an art gallery and non-profit organisation in Paris that was established to preserve and show the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson an ...
in Paris (2011) and Kunstmuseum Bonn
The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Bonn, Germany, founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its collection. Its collection is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German ...
(2011); the Musée de l'Élysée
Musée de l'Élysée is a museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, entirely devoted to photography. It is a government-supported institution founded in 1985 by Charles-Henri Favrod. It was housed in an 18th-century mansion until October 2020. in Lausanne (2011) and Open Eye Gallery
Open Eye Gallery is a photography gallery and archive in Liverpool, UK that was established in 1977. It is housed in a purpose-built building on the waterfront at Mann Island, its fourth location.
Open Eye Gallery comprises an exhibition space ...
in Liverpool (2011).
Personal life
His first marriage to director Mira Nair
Mira Nair (born 15 October 1957) is an Indian-American filmmaker based in New York City. Her production company, Mirabai Films, specializes in films for international audiences on Indian society, whether in the economic, social or cultural spher ...
ended in divorce. Epstein experienced "uncomfortable" racial discrimination due to his interracial relationship with Nair.
Epstein identified his travels in India for his photography work and as part of Nair's various film productions as perspective-shifting. He describes the trips to India as the among the most important experiences in his life.
He currently lives in New York with his wife and frequent collaborator, Susan Bell, and his daughter.
Awards
* Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...
(2002–2003)
* Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award (2004)
* American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
: Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters, Guna S. Mundheim Fellow in the Visual Arts (2008)
* Prix Pictet The Prix Pictet (Pictet prize) is an international award in photography. It was founded in 2008 by the Geneva-based Pictet Group with the mandate to use the power of photography to communicate messages about sustainability to a global audience. Its ...
(2011)
Films
*''India Cabaret'' (1985) – Director of photography
*''Salaam Bombay!
''Salaam Bombay!'' is a 1988 Indian Hindi-language drama film, directed, co-written and co-produced by Mira Nair. The screenwriter was Nair's creative collaborator Sooni Taraporevala. This was the first feature film directed by Nair. The film ...
'' (1988) – Cinematographer and production designer
*''Mississippi Masala
''Mississippi Masala'' is a 1991 romantic drama film directed by Mira Nair, based upon a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, starring Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, and Roshan Seth. Set primarily in rural Mississippi, the film explores ...
'' (1992) – Cinematographer and production designer
*''Dad'' (2003) – Producer and director
Publications
*''In Pursuit of India''. New York: Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An opt ...
, 1987. .
*''Fire, Water, Wind: Photographs from Tenri''. Tenri-shi, Japan: Tenrikyō Dōyūsha, 1996. .
*''Vietnam: A Book of Changes''. New York: Center for Documentary Studies in association with W.W. Norton & Co., 1997. .
*''The City''. New York: powerHouse, 2002. .
*''Family Business''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl
Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him.
Overview
The company was started by Ger ...
, 2003. .
*''Recreation: American photographs 1973-1988''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2005. .
*''Work''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2006. .
*''American Power''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2009. .
*''Berlin''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl & The American Academy in Berlin, 2011. .
*''New York Arbor''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2013.
*''Rocks and Clouds''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2018.
*''Sunshine Hotel''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl/PPP 2019.
*''Property Rights''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl 2021.
*''In India''. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl 2021.
References
External links
*
*
Mitch Epstein on Artnet.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Mitch
1952 births
Living people
20th-century American Jews
American portrait photographers
American photojournalists
American cinematographers
American production designers
People from Holyoke, Massachusetts
Cooper Union alumni
Rhode Island School of Design alumni
Union College (New York) alumni
21st-century American Jews