Stephen Shore

'an encyclopedic collection of Shore’s photographic work that spans five decades.' - New York Journal of Books

A career spanning retrospective of the photographer Stephen Shore

One of the most influential photographers of our time, Stephen Shore has often been considered alongside other artists who rose to prominence in the 1970s by capturing the mundane aspects of American popular culture in straightforward, unglamorous images. But Shore has worked with many forms of photography, switching from cheap automatic cameras to large-format cameras in the 1970s, pioneering the use of colour before returning to black and white in the 1990s, and in the 2000s taking up the opportunities of digital photography, digital printing and social media. 

The book traces the arc of Shore’s work including the gelatin silver prints he made as a teenager (and sold to The Museum of Modern Art); his photographs of the scene at Andy Warhol’s Factory, in New York; the colour images he made during cross-country road trips in the 1970s; his recent explorations of Israel, the West Bank and Ukraine; and his current work on digital platforms, including Instagram. The publication accompanies Shore's exhibition at MoMA. Photographs in the book are grouped into some 60 sections according to content or themes, i.e., Black and White, Shop Windows, Signage, Street Photography, Food. Each grouping is accompanied by a wide-ranging and well-written essay that helps explain Shore's work and his conceptual motivations.

The book is comprehensive and beautifully printed on a medium weight non-glossy stock. The quality of the colour reproductions of Shore's work is superb. However, be aware that Shore's images are somewhat small on the page, typically 7.5 by 6 inches centred on a 10 by 9-inch page.  

Read the full New York Journal of Books review 

Details

• Author: Quentin Bajac, the Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art
• Hardcover: 336 pages | 450 colour images
• Date published: November 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0500544969
• Dimensions: 26.7 x 22.9 cm