id: 154858 accession number: 1989.435 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1989.435 updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:06.868000 Edith, Christmas Morning, Danville, Virginia, 1971. Emmet Gowin (American, 1941-). Gelatin silver print; image: 20.3 x 25.2 cm (8 x 9 15/16 in.); matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Museum members in 1989 1989.435 title: Edith, Christmas Morning, Danville, Virginia title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1971 creation date earliest: 1971 creation date latest: 1971 current location: creditline: Gift of Museum members in 1989 copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - American 1951-Present type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Emmet Gowin (American, 1941-) - artist Emmet Gowin American, 1941- For Emmet Gowin (born in Danville, Virginia), the intimate bonds of family are at the root of human experience. His early black-and-white photographs of his wife, Edith, their two sons, Elijah and Isaac, and Edith's extended family in Danville focused on the cycle of life, how people relate to the land, and the ritual importance of the everyday. These themes pervade his life's work. After graduating from the Richmond Professional Institute (B.A. in graphic design, 1965), Gowin immersed himself in photography. He studied with Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design (M.F.A., 1967) and visited Walker Evans in New York, who praised Gowin's student work and exchanged prints. Gowin also became acquainted with Frederick Sommer and his philosophical and aesthetic ideas, a friendship that has endured. In 1973 Gowin began to photograph the landscape and has since traveled the world, working extensively in the British Isles, Italy, Jordan, and Israel. Since the early 1980s, he has made aerial photographs of geographic areas that have been altered by either natural or man-made forces: the industrial-scale agriculture of the Great Plains, the U.S. -- Mexico border, the nuclear test area of Yucca Flats, and Kuwait after the Gulf War. Publications of his work include Emmet Gowin/Photographs (1976), Petra (1986), and Emmet Gowin/Photographs (1990). In addition to teaching at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio (1967-71) and Princeton University (since 1973), Gowin has taught workshops and lectured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. A major traveling retrospective of his work was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1990), and he has had one-person exhibitions at the Dayton Art Institute (1968), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (with Robert Adams, 1971), George Eastman House, Rochester (1971), the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1971, 1973, 1983), the Photo Gallery International, Tokyo (1989, 1993), Espace Photographie Marie de Paris (1992), the American Centers at Fokuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, Saporo, Yokohama, and Tokyo (1992-93), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1995). Among his achievements are fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1974), the National Endowment for the Arts (1977, 1979), and the Pew Charitable Trust (1995), as well as the Friends of Photography Peer Award (1992). Gowin lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania. A.W. --- measurements: Image: 20.3 x 25.2 cm (8 x 9 15/16 in.); Matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on verso: "2 [circled] 20 of 20 EG."; "Edith: Christmas Morning, / Danville Virginia 1971 Emmet Gowin [signed] 1984 / 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 overmat 14 x 15 1/2" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Contemporary American Photographers opening date: 1992-11-18T05:00:00 Contemporary American Photographers. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 18, 1992-January 3, 1993). title: Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 1996-11-24T05:00:00 Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS E. H. T. "The Year in Review: Selections 1989." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 2 (1990): 38-78. page number: p. 71, no. 95 url: www.jstor.org/stable/25160106 Hinson, Tom E. "Contemporary American Photographs: An Exhibition." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 9 (1992): 306-51. page number: p. 348, no. 31, repr. p. 330 url: www.jstor.org/stable/25161375 Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. page number: Reproduced: P. 187 url: --- IMAGES