Book Description
· 88 color and duotone reproductions of works from a major exhibition organized by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas
· Both photographers are celebrated for creating art for environmental activism
· Includes an introductory essay by John Rohrbach, senior curator of photographs at the Carter, and closing remarks by Robert Glenn Ketchum
· Includes chronologies of both artists along with lists of their publications and major exhibitions
Eliot Porter (1901-1999) was the first established artist-photographer to commit to exploring the beauty and diversity of the natural world with color film. Widely exhibited, Porter set the standard for color landscape photography. But he was also a passionate ambassador for environmental causes: in 1962, the Sierra Club’s publication of his book "In Wildness is the Preservation of the World" set him on a lifelong path. His artistic vision in service of environmental activism inspired generations of photographers, and Robert Glenn Ketchum counts himself among them.
Ketchum is recognized as one of the leading contemporary photographers of the American landscape. Like Porter, Ketchum creates portraits and publications of ecologically significant places. The images in Regarding the Land reveal how Ketchum has honored Porter’s pioneering use of color and graphic composition, but moved beyond Porter’s careful description of place. Ketchum presents landscapes as ideas that can be shaped, even defined, by the imagination. An essay by John Rohrbach, senior curator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, illuminates the development of these two artists. Rohrbach reveals how Ketchum has expanded upon Porter’s visual vocabulary, both with his photographs and with magnificently embroidered translations produced by China’s renowned Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute.
