Eleven Projects (+/-) / Forty Years (+/-)
A Jim Dow Retrospective
May 3–19, 2013

  • Jury Box and Courtroom, Macon County Courthouse. Tuskegee, AL 1977 by Jim Dow

    Jury Box and Courtroom, Macon County Courthouse. Tuskegee, AL 1977 by Jim Dow

  • Two Tacquerias, Av. Emilio Gustavo Bas, Independencia, Naucalpan, Estado de Mexico, Mexico 2005 by Jim Dow

    Two Tacquerias, Av. Emilio Gustavo Bas, Independencia, Naucalpan, Estado de Mexico, Mexico 2005 by Jim Dow

  • Fresh Air Barbeque. Hwy 42, Jackson, GA 1998 by Jim Dow

    Fresh Air Barbeque. Hwy 42, Jackson, GA 1998 by Jim Dow

From the time I got out of school until last week I have never really deviated from the way I take pictures and that will continue until I stop. The hundreds of pictures I have made and the thousands of miles I have travelled could be said to comprise a straight line; the camera is placed in front of the subject, the light is measured and, to quote myself,  “My interest in photography centers on its capacity for what appears to be exact description. I use photography to try to record the manifestations of human ingenuity and spirit that still remain in the everyday landscape.”

Jim Dow photographs those places where people enact their everyday rituals, often endangered regional traditions–a barbershop with a heavy patina of town life covering the walls, the opulent time capsule of an old private New York club, the densely packed display of smoking pipes in an English tobacconist shop–all artifacts of what might vanish at any moment.

Eleven Different Bodies of Work…

  • B&W US Road pictures: Woman’s Face on a sign. Mankato, MN 1972
  • Courthouses: Jury Box and Courtroom, Macon County Courthouse. Tuskegee, AL 1977
  • Color US Road pictures: Pam’s Hair Salon. US 70, Haw River, NC 2012
  • North Dakota: John Deere Tractor from Hay Bales. ND 200, Golden Valley, ND 2004
  • Stadiums: J.P. O’Donnell Stadium @ sunset. Davenport, IA 1988
  • UK Shops: Rear Dining Room, Pellicci’s Café. Bethnal Green, London, UK 1993
  • Argentina: Bocci Clubhouse, La Bonbonera. La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1984
  • Mexico: Fruit Drink Stand @ Anthropology Museum. Chapultepec Park, Cuauhtemoc DF. Mexico 2011
  • Rear of El Chato Taco Truck. Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, CA 2008
  • Two Tacquerias, Av. Emilio Gustavo Bas, Independencia, Naucalpan, Estado de Mexico, Mexico 2005
  • Carrito owned by a psychoanalyst. Costanera Sur. Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2010
  • BBQ: Fresh Air Barbeque. Hwy 42, Jackson, GA 1998
  • NYC Clubs: Library from East, University Club. New York, NY 1999

Artists

Jim Dow
Jim Dow jimdowphotography.com

Jim Dow’s photographs focus on the passage of time as it is recorded in landscapes from North Dakota to Great Britain to Argentina. Using an 8 x 10 inch view camera, Dow (American, b. 1942) turns his lens to roadside signs, aging buildings, and interiors that feel locked in another era. His images honestly record the scenes before his camera, avoiding sentiments of nostalgia while paying tribute to lands marked by past and current residents. A leading American photographer, Dow pushes his viewer to reconsider familiar surroundings and discern the beauty and cultural history hidden in modern landscapes.

Dow first gained attention for his panoramic triptychs of baseball stadiums, a project that began with an image he made of Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia, PA, in 1980. To date, Dow has documented more than two hundred major and minor league parks in the United States and Canada. Dow is an internationally exhibited artist and has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, LEF Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. He was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been published in American Studies (2011), Marking the Land (2007), Where We Live: Photographs from the Berman Collection (2006) as well as in international magazines and academic and fine art journals.

In addition to teaching at Harvard University and Tufts University, Dow has taught photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for over twenty years. His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; United States Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Decordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK.

Jim Dow is represented by Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.

Photo by Kevin Meredith