Shore, Stephen

Initially shooting in black-and-white, Stephen Shore took up color photography in 1973 and produced thereafter pictures that would play an important role in establishing color as a valid medium in art photography. Coronado Street, Los Angeles, California marks a number of Shore’s other 1970s milestones, as well. In 1972, for instance, the New York native embarked on a road trip that was to offer what he refers to as his “first view of America.” A decade’s worth of summer road trips followed, including the one that took Shore to Coronado Street. In 1974, Shore began photographing with an 8x10 view camera. The change in format may well account for the strong formalistic motifs, graphic qualities, and linear elements introduced in his work that same year and which are clearly evident in the Coronado Street picture.

Stephen Shore was born on October 8, 1947 in New York City. He began photographing at age eight, and at fourteen sold three prints to Edward Steichen (then director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). Shore left a Manhattan prep school during twelfth grade, and spent 1965 through 1969 documenting Andy Warhol’s factory. In 1971, the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited Shore’s work in the institution’s first-ever single artist show by a living photographer. In 1976, the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited his color work. Shore is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1975) and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1974 and 1979). The George Eastman House mounted his first retrospective, Stephen Shore: Photographs 1973-1993, in 1996. His work is included in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Seattle Art Museum, Washington; and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Shore resumed photographing in black-and-white in 1991, and more recently has begun shooting with a digital camera and printing small photo books.