Alex Webb (born May 5, 1952) is a photographer who makes vibrant and complex color photographs. He has been a member of

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Maria Eisn ...

since 1979. Webb's books include ''Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds'' (1986), ''Under a Grudging Sun'' (1989) ''From The Sunshine State'' (1996), ''Amazon'' (1997) ''Crossings'' (2003), ''Istanbul'' (2007), ''The Suffering of Light'' (2011), ''La Calle'' (2016), as well as with photographer Rebecca Norris Webb, his wife and creative partner—''Violet Isle'' (2009), ''Memory City'' (2014), ''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb on Street Photography and the Poetic Image'' (2014), ''Slant Rhymes'' (2017), and ''Brooklyn: The City Within (2019)''. He has exhibited at museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. He has contributed to ''

Geo Geo- is a prefix derived from the Greek word ''γη'' or ''γαια'', meaning "earth", usually in the sense of "ground or land”. GEO or Geo may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''GEO'' (magazine), a popular scientific magazine ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

, National Geographic,'' and ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

''.

Career

Born in San Francisco, Webb was raised in New England. He became interested in photography as a high school student and in 1972 attended the Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York, where he met Magnum photographers Bruce Davidson and Charles Harbutt. Webb went on to study history and literature at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(graduating in 1974), but also studied photography at the

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building designed primarily by Le Corbusier in the United States—he contributed to the design of the United Nations Secretariat Building—a ...

. By 1974 he was working as a photojournalist and in 1976 became an associate member of Magnum Photos. During this time he documented small-town life in the American South. He also did some work in the Caribbean and Mexico, which led him, in 1978, to begin working in color, which he has continued to do. Webb's work has been exhibited at the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

, the

Museum of Photographic Arts The Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) is a museum in San Diego's Balboa Park. First founded in 1974, MOPA opened in 1983.International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

, the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, and the

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 ...

. He has received commissions from the High Museum of Art as well as the Banesto Foundation in Spain. Webb now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, Rebecca Norris Webb, who is also a photographer, and they have collaborated on a number of books

Publications

Books by Webb

*''Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds: Photographs from the Tropics'', New York: Thames & Hudson, 1986. *''Under a Grudging Sun: Photographs from Haiti Libere'', New York: Thames & Hudson, 1989. *''From The Sunshine State: Photographs of Florida'', New York: Monacelli Press, Inc., 1996. *''Amazon: From the Floodplains to the Clouds'' USA: Monacelli Press, Inc., 1997. *''Dislocations'', Edition of 40. Massachusttes: Film Study Center at Harvard University, 1998-1999. *''Crossings: Photographs from the U.S.-Mexico Border.'' New York: Monacelli Press, 2003. . With an essay by Tom Miller. *''Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names.'' 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 ...

, 2007. . With

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...

. *''The Suffering of Light''. New York: Aperture, 2011. *''La Calle''. New York, NY: Aperture. 2016. p. 176. .

Books paired with Rebecca Norris Webb

*''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Violet Isle.'' Santa Fe, NM: Radius, 2009. . With an introduction by

Pico Iyer Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer (born 11 February 1957), known as Pico Iyer, is a British-born essayist and novelist known chiefly for his travel writing. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including ''Video Night in Kathmandu ...

. *''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Memory City''. Santa Fe, NM: Radius. 2014. p. 172. . *''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb on Street Photography and the Poetic Image: The Photography Workshop Series''. New York, NY: Aperture. 2014. p. 128. . With an introduction by

Teju Cole Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella ''Every Day Is for the Thief'' (2007), a novel ''Open City'' (2011), an essay collection ''Known and Strange Things'' (20 ...

. *''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Slant Rhymes.'' Madrid: La Fábrica, 2017. . *''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Brooklyn: The City Within.''

, 2019. . *''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Waves.'' Santa Fe, NM: Radius. 2022. .

Publications with contributions by Webb

*''Endure: Renewal from Ground Zero.'' New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 2001. . By Webb,

Antonín Kratochvíl Antonín Kratochvíl (also written Antonin Kratochvil; born 12 April 1947) is a Czech-born American photojournalist. He is a founding member of VII Photo Agency. Life and work Kratochvíl was born in 1947 in Lovosice, Czechoslovakia. He gained a ...

, Jurek Wajdowicz, Carolina Salguero and Larry Towell. *''Alex Webb Habla Con Max Kozloff'', Conversaciones con fotógrafos. Barcelona, Spain: La Fabrica, 2003. . Pp. 75. *''Conversations with Contemporary Photographers.'' New York: Umbrage, 2005. . Transcript of a conversation between Webb and

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 ...

. Pp. 150. *''Contatti. Provini d'Autore'' = ''Choosing the best photo by using the contact sheet''. Vol. II. Edited by Giammaria De Gasperis. Rome: Postcart, 2013. . *''Home.'' Tokyo:

Tokyo, 2018. . Non-English Language Publications * ''Karibik.'' Hamburg: Mare, 2010. . German language version. * ''La Sofferenza della Luce.'' Milan: Contrasto, 2011. . Italian language version. * ''La Souffrance et la Joie de la Lumière.'' Paris: Textuel, 2011. . French language version. * ''Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Rimas de Reojo.'' Madrid: La Fábrica, 2017. . Spanish language version.

Awards

*1988: Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography Award, Photographic Resource Center (PRC) at Boston University *2007: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial FoundationAlex Webb"
. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Accessed March 8, 2018. *2019: Recipient of

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Grant

References

External links

Official Website of Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris WebbPortfolio at Magnum Photos
by Luc Sante, New York Times.
Capturing Complexity and Color in Mexico
by James Estrin, The New York Times Lens Blog. {{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, Alex Photographers from California 1952 births Living people Harvard College alumni People from Brooklyn