Philip Perkis (born 1935) is an American photographer and educator. He has received a

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 ...

and his work is held in the collections of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...

, J. Paul Getty Museum,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

,https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?q=Philip+Perkis&sortBy=Relevance&pageSize=0

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, and

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

.https://collections.mfa.org/advancedsearch/Objects/peopleSearch%3APhilip%20Perkis;jsessionid=910CB927457756744167E79FAAE1435B

Life and work

Perkis was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied painting at

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

. He took up photography while in the Air Force in 1957. Later he made half his living doing commercial assignments and printing for other photographers, and the other half teaching—at

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

in Brooklyn, New York and at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Around 1992, Perkis made photographs in Mexico on a

, resulting in the 2019 book ''Mexico''.

Personal life

Perkis is married to the artist

Cyrilla Mozenter Cyrilla Mozenter is a New York-based artist known for her hand stitched industrial wool felt freestanding and wall pieces that include the transplantation of cutout letters, letter-derived, and pictogram-like shapes, as well as her hybrid works o ...

Publications

Books of photography by Perkis

*''Warwick Mountain Series: Photographs.'' Atlanta, GA: Nexus, 1978. . *''The Sadness of Men''. New York City: Quantuck Lane, 2008. . With a foreword by Alan Klotz, an introduction by

Max Kozloff Max Kozloff (born 1933) is an American art historian, art critic of modern art and photographer. He has been art editor at ''The Nation'', and Executive Editor of ''Artforum''. His essay "American Painting During the Cold War" is of particular im ...

and a transcrpt of an interview between Perkis and John Braverman Levine. *''In a Box Upon the Sea = 바다로 떠나는 상자 속에서 = Pada ro ttŏnanŭn sangja sok esŏ.'' Seoul, South Korea: Anmoc, 2016. Photographs and anecdotes by Perkis. In English and Korean. *''Mexico''. Seoul, South Korea: Anmoc, 2019. . In English and Korean.

Other books by Perkis

*''Teaching Photography: Notes Assembled''. Rochester, NY: OB; RIT Cary Graphic Arts. 2001, ; 2005, . *''A Single Photography, Twenty Days, Twenty Comments''. . With an introduction by Owen Butler.

Films

*''Just to See – A Mystery: a Film Portrait of Philip Perkis'' (2015) – 1 h 20 m; documentary directed by Jin Ju Lee

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*''Philip Perkis: Fifty Years of Photographs'',

Jepson Center for the Arts Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...

, Savannah, Georgia, 2010

Group exhibitions

*''Spirit of Mexico: Photographs by Bravo, Levitt and Perkis'',

Telfair Academy The Telfair Academy is a historic mansion at 121 Barnard Street in Savannah, Georgia. It was designed by William Jay and built in 1818, and is one of a small number of Jay's surviving works. It is one of three sites owned by Telfair Museums. Or ...

, Savannah, Georgia, 2006. With work by Perkins,

Manuel Alvarez Bravo Manuel may refer to: People * Manuel (name) * Manuel (Fawlty Towers), a fictional character from the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'' * Charlie Manuel, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies * Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of the Byzantine Empire * Manu ...

and

Helen Levitt Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009) was an American photographer and cinematographer. She was particularly noted for her street photography around New York City. David Levi Strauss described her as "the most celebrated and least ...

Awards

*1991:

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 ...

for photography

Collections

Perkis' work is held in the following permanent collections: *

: 8 prints (as of 27 October 2022) *

: 6 prints (as of 27 October 2022) * J. Paul Getty Museum: 2 prints (as of 27 October 2022) *

: 8 prints (as of 27 October 2022) *

: 4 prints (as of 27 October 2022) *

: 5 prints (as of 27 October 2022)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perkis, Philip 21st-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers School of Visual Arts faculty Pratt Institute faculty San Francisco Art Institute alumni People from Boston Living people 1935 births