Early Work
“A camera doesn’t point at the world but frames it.”
Stephen Shore
We all know Stephen Shore for his images of the Factory's protagonists, but above all, we know him as one of the great photographers who paved the way for colour photography to gain recognition as an art form.
In 1973, he undertook his first two-year journey across the United States. Using a 35mm camera and colour films, Shore photographs everything he encounters on his trip: the meals consumed, the roads, the people, the motels, the cars, and urban landscapes. Upon his return, he publishes the book "American Surfaces".
However, his second journey is memorable, marked by his project to document the States with a large-format camera. The images collected later in the book "Uncommon Places" depict a landscape as it is in reality, modified by human activity. A kind of documentation of the impact of consumerism on the American land.
This book is the latest gem offered by the American photographer, a journey through early 1960s New York City (from 1960 to 1965) through the eyes of a teenager. The book also contains a sort of small autobiography that makes it even more valuable, because it can tell the story of a photographer who, from childhood, knew what he would become as an adult.
It is striking how Shore’s young formation was full of cultural stimuli. Becket, for example, and this moment, important for his photography: "The following year, in October of 1957, a neighbour in our apartment building gave me a copy of Walker Evans’s American Photographs for my tenth birthday. This was my entrée into the world of photography as an art."
And regarding Evans, Shore says: "I see a harmony, a kinship, between his sensibility and mine. A formal sense, a classicism. This may begin with the understanding that a camera doesn’t point at the world but frames it." With this statement, we can understand his entire approach to photography.
“Early Work” documents Stephen Shore's sharp understanding of photography from a young age. Shore is a true street photographer. He is neither partial nor selective. He observes the streets through his lenses and photographs anyone who catches his attention, and as he himself says, the world depicted within his photographs must be understandable independently, without the need for context. In these images, some of the subjects appear to be aware that they are being photographed, while others do not. NYC is a self-sufficient entity that is always in motion, and to truly capture it, one must love and understand it. And Shore does it. Shore’s camera pauses the actions for the viewer's contemplation.
NYC is a self-sufficient entity that is always in motion, and Shore seems to have understood it perfectly. More than that, you can feel the love for the city and its inhabitants. Shore’s camera pauses the actions for the viewer's contemplation. The most extraordinary thing is the maturity evident in his shots, aimed at everyone, not just his peers. The eye of someone who wants to document and tell stories. And discover and understand.
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK (I had no idea I’d been there before’: Stephen Shore’s parents in Rhinebeck. )
A collection of entirely unseen photographs made by Stephen Shore between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, showing astonishing accomplishment and artistic intuition Shore captures life on the bustling streets of 1960s New York, at school, and among his friends and family in arresting black- and-white compositions, demonstrating his astute, curious eye and savant-like feel for the medium. This fascinating prequel to Shore’s oeuvre is an essential addition to any collection of the artist’s works.
MACK: Embossed linen hardcover with tipped-in image – 21.5 x 25.5 cm – 172 pages – €65, £55, US$70, AU$135 – August 2025 /SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE
STEPHEN SHORE’s work has been widely published and exhibited for the past forty-five years. At age twenty-three, he was the first living photographer to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since Alfred Stieglitz, forty years earlier. More than twenty-five books have been published of Stephen Shore’s photographs, including Uncommon Places: The Complete Works (1982) and American Surfaces (1972); works which are now considered important milestones in photographic history. Shore is represented by 303 Gallery (New York) and Sprüth Magers (London and Berlin).
