Joel-Sternfeld_McLean-VIrginia

Joel Sternfeld

B. United States, 1944

The Works

19

1

Joel Sternfeld

After a Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California

1979

Dye transfer print, printed 1981

2

Joel Sternfeld

Coeburn, Virginia, April

1981

Dye transfer print, printed 1980s

3

Joel Sternfeld

Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica, California, May

1979

Dye transfer print, printed 1985

4

Joel Sternfeld

Approximately 17 of 41 Sperm Whales Which Beached and Subsequently Died, Florence, Oregon, June

1979

Dye transfer print, printed 1980s

5

Joel Sternfeld

Abandoned Uranium Refinery, near Tuba City, Navajo Nation, August

1982

Dye transfer print, printed 1980s

6

Joel Sternfeld

Park City, Utah, August

1979

C-type print, printed 1982

7

Joel Sternfeld

Kitt Peak National Observatory, Pima County, Arizona, August

1979

C-type print, printed 1980

8

Joel Sternfeld

Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, March

1983

C-type print, printed 1987

9

Joel Sternfeld

Monongahela River, Grafton, West Virginia, February

1983

C-type print, printed 1987

10

Joel Sternfeld

Ketchum, Idaho, October

1980

C-type print, printed 1981

11

Joel Sternfeld

Virginia on the Potomac, November

1978

C-type print, printed 1980

12

Joel Sternfeld

A Kickapoo Man in Eagle Pass Texas, January

1983

C-type print, printed 1983

13

Joel Sternfeld

Sudden Summer Storm, Connecticut

c. 1977

C-type print, printed c. 1980s

14

Joel Sternfeld

Two Motels in Las Cruces, New Mexico

1986

C-type print, printed 1987

15

Joel Sternfeld

Agoura, California, February

1988

C-type print, printed 1988

16

Joel Sternfeld

Member of the Christ Family Religious Sect, Hidalgo County, Texas, January

1983

C-type print, printed 1984

17

Joel Sternfeld

Architecture Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts, July

1980

C-type print, printed 1981

18

Joel Sternfeld

A Railroad Artifact, 30th Street, May

2000

Archival pigment print

19

Joel Sternfeld

Looking East on 30th Street on a Late September Morning

2000

Archival pigment print

Joel Sternfeld

B. United States 1944

B. United States 1944

Biography

Joel Sternfeld began taking photographs in 1970 having studied the colour theory of artists Johannes Itten and Josef Albers. Early work included street photography on small and medium format cameras. In 1978, Sternfeld embarked on a road-trip which traversed the United States. Using an 8 x 10 inch camera, Sternfeld photographed the communities, culture, landscapes and quotidian life he encountered along the way.

American Prospects is seen as a continuation of the American documentary tradition established in the 1930s by Walker Evans and continued by Robert Frank twenty years later. Sternfeld expanded the trajectory of the medium by photographing scenes rich in implied narrative, which were also distinct in their colour and composition. Laced with a touch of irony, his photographs from the project explore American identity in a thought provoking yet humorous manner. His masterful use of colour heightens the tensions in these comic depictions of everyday life in America. First exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and then published in book form in 1987, American Prospects is regarded as one of the most influential bodies of photographic work from this period. Sternfeld’s later work has continued to experiment with colour and put it to use in documenting everyday events and the people he encounters. 

Sternfeld was born in New York City in 1944, and earned a BA in Art from Dartmouth College. His work has been the subject of multiple exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, the Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany, the Albertina Museum of Vienna, Austria and C/O Berlin, Germany. Sternfeld has received numerous awards including two Guggenheim fellowships, a Prix de Rome and the Citibank Photography Award. He holds the Noble Foundation Chair in Art and Cultural History at Sarah Lawrence College.

He lives and works in New York.

Discover

4

Exhibitions

1

Sternfeld thumbnail

Joel Sternfeld: Colour Photographs 1977-1988

27.1 - 18.22017

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