Article
Emmet Gowin, artist
Emmet Gowin has been the instructor of photography in the Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University since 1973 . His photographs have been widely exhibited in numerous one-man exhibitions since 1968, and his work is represented in the photographic collections of all of the major museums here and abroad. In 1982 he was selected as one of two American photographers to appear on the national television program "Creativity with Bill Moyers," a telecast that included a lengthy on-camera interview. A resident of Pennsylvania, in 1983 he was honored with the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in Pennsylvania.
Gowin is especially known for the extra ordinary quality and unique craftsmanship of his photographic prints. Like his mentor, Frederick Sommer, Gowin considers certain of his creations monoprints. This aspect of his work has an influence on how his photographs are read, and Peter Bunnell comments, "Images [for Gowin] thus become more memorable than experience. The dynamic of experience is complex and at a distance, while an image is remarkable as an imaginative instrument of this realism; it shines in miniature and it may be studied, close at hand and only inches away, where the photograph is." For Gowin, the "challenge of photography is to show the thing photographed so one's feelings are awakened and hidden aspects are revealed."
Gowin is especially known for the extra ordinary quality and unique craftsmanship of his photographic prints. Like his mentor, Frederick Sommer, Gowin considers certain of his creations monoprints. This aspect of his work has an influence on how his photographs are read, and Peter Bunnell comments, "Images [for Gowin] thus become more memorable than experience. The dynamic of experience is complex and at a distance, while an image is remarkable as an imaginative instrument of this realism; it shines in miniature and it may be studied, close at hand and only inches away, where the photograph is." For Gowin, the "challenge of photography is to show the thing photographed so one's feelings are awakened and hidden aspects are revealed."
