Joel Meyerowitz was born in New York in 1938. He began photographing in 1962. He is a “street photographer” in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, although he works exclusively in color. As an early advocate of color photography (mid-60’s), Meyerowitz was instrumental in changing the attitude toward the use of color photography from one of resistance to nearly universal acceptance. His first book, Cape Light, is considered a classic work of color photography. He is the author of 14 other books, including Bystander: The History of Street Photography.
In 1998 he produced and directed his first film, POP, an intimate diary of a three-week road trip he made with his son, Sasha, and his father, Hy. This odyssey has as its central character an unpredictable, street-wise and witty 87 year-old with a failing memory. It is both an open-eyed look at aging and a meditation on the significance of memory.
Within a few days of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Meyerowitz began to create an archive of the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero and the immediate neighborhood. The World Trade Center Archive now numbers more than 8,000 images and will be available for research, exhibition, and publication at museums in New York and Washington, DC.
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. State Department asked the Museum of the City of New York and Meyerowitz to create a special exhibition of images from the archive, which has traveled to more than 200 cities in 60 countries.The purpose of the exhibit was to visually relate the catastrophic destruction of the 9/11 attacks and the physical and human dimensions of the recovery effort.
The only photographer who was granted unimpeded access to Ground Zero after September 13, 2001, Meyerowitz takes a meditative stance toward the work and workers there, systematically documenting the painful work of rescue, recovery, demolition and excavation. His color photos, presented in a 30 inch x 40 inch format, succinctly convey the magnitude of the destruction and loss and the heroic nature of the response.
In addition to the traveling shows, Meyerowitz was invited to represent the United States at the 8th Venice Biennale for Architecture with his photographs from the World Trade Center Archives.
400 of Meyerowitz’s World Trade Center Archive photographs and over 100 stories are published in the book “Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive.”
Meyerowitz is a Guggenheim fellow and a recipient of both the NEA and NEH awards. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many others.
