Photographers in the Garden: In conversation with Bill Owens
Alice Austen House is proud to present The Photographer in the Garden 9/7- 12/31/2021. Since the invention of the medium, photographers have been drawn by the allure of flowers. This group exhibition is excerpted from the book The Photographer in the Garden, co-published by Aperture and the George Eastman Museum, celebrating the rich history of artists working in the garden as a site of inspiration and reinvention.
During the course of the exhibition, the museum is proud to present a series of virtual panel discussions. This is the second of four panel discussions.
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21ST | 7PM
The Alice Austen House will host a conversation with Paul Moakley (editor and curator) and Bill Owens (photographer) about documenting the suburban landscape. While working at a local newspaper in Livermore, CA, Owens became known as the foremost chronicler of Suburbia, made famous with the publication of his book by that name in 1972. He is a featured artist in Photographer in the Garden, our current contemporary exhibition.
Bill Owens was born in San Jose, CA September 25, 1938. While working at a local newspaper in Livermore, CA, Owens became known as the foremost chronicler of Suburbia, made famous with the publication of his book by that name in 1972. The Los Angeles Times commented that the book “rouses pity, contempt, laughter, and self-recognition. Owens’s immense influence during the 1970s, especially in respect to the kind of portraiture that shows the middle class.” In 2001, Suburbia was included in Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century.
In 1983 after working several years as a photojournalist, publishing a series of books, Owens began his brewing career. He established Buffalo Bill’s, one of the nation’s first Brew Pubs. From 1993 to 1995, Bill published BEER, the magazine and today had moved by the spirits. Ownes founded The American Distilling Institute (ADI), the oldest and largest organization of small-batch, independently-owned distillers in the United States, which he continues to lead and cultivate.
Owens is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Grants. He continues to make, exhibit, and sell his photographs internationally.
Paul Moakley is an Editor at Large for Special Projects at TIME. He served as Deputy Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise of TIME from 2010 to 2018. Paul Moakley produces special projects such as the recent “Opioid Diaries” and TIME’s Person of the Year. He was part of the Emmy award winning team for TIME’s interactive documentary Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience.
Previously he was senior photo editor at Newsweek and photo editor of PDN (Photo District News).
Paul’s love of Alice Austen began as a young teenage volunteer at the museum. He has lived at the Alice Austen House Museum, as caretaker and curator of the museum, for over 12 years.
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