Henry Wessel, Jr.

Henry Wessel
Wessel with his dog Roxy
Born	1942 Teaneck, New Jersey
Education	B.A. - Pennsylvania State University M.F.A. - State University of New York at Buffalo/Visual Studies Workshop
Occupation	Photographer

Henry Wessel (born 1942 in Teaneck, New Jersey) is an American photographer noted for his descriptive, yet poetic photographs of the human environment. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships^[1][2] and three National Endowment for the Arts grants.^[3] His photographs are included in the permanent collections of major American, European, and Asian museums. Wessel's first solo exhibition was curated by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1972^[4] and he was one of ten photographers included in the influential New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape exhibition at George Eastman House in 1975.^[5] His work has since been frequently and widely exhibited, including solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Wessel has also produced a number of books of his photography.

On the work of Henry Wessel, Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art wrote, "Wessel's remarkable work, witty, evocative and inventive, is distinctive and at the same time a component part of the great development of photography which flourished in the 1970s. The pictures continue to grow and evolve and the work is now regarded as an individual important contribution to twentieth century American photography^[6]

Quotes by Wessel

• It's a pleasure for me. The process of photographing. Being physically in the world, eyes open, attentive, sensing, and at some point, connecting. To be in the world and of the world. To be, at the same time, out of your head, yet absolutely, exactly, there. It's thrilling when your eyes get ahead of your brain."^[7]
• "It has to do with the discipline of being actively receptive. At the core of this receptivity is a process that might be called soft eyes. It is a physical sensation. You are not looking for something. You are open, receptive. At some point you are in front of something that you cannot ignore."^[8]

Publications

Publications by Wessel

• House Pictures. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 1992. OCLC 26864482.
• Night Walk. Santa Monica, CA: RAM Publications + Distribution, 2000. ISBN 978-0963078575.
• Henry Wessel: Rena Bransten Gallery Exhibition Catalogue San Francisco: Rena Bransten Gallery, 2000. ASIN: B000UPRBAW
• California and the West / Odd Photos / Las Vegas / Real Estate Photographs / Night Walk. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. ISBN 978-3865211330. Five Volume Set.
• Henry Wessel. Göttingen: Steidl; San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2007. ISBN 978-3865213914. Retrospective. With an essay by Sandra S. Phillips.
• Waikiki. Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. ISBN 978-3869303000.
• Incidents. Göttingen: Steidl, 2013. ISBN 978-3869306971.
• Sunset Park. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. ISBN 978-3958291133
• Continental Divide. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. ISBN 978-3958291157
• Traffic. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. ISBN 978-3958291140
• Traffic / Sunset Park / Continental Divide. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. ISBN 978-3-95829-275-8.

Publications with contributions by Wessel

• Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1973. ISBN 978-0870705151. By John Szarkowski.
• Henry Wessel. Göttingen: Steidl, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, 2007. ISBN 978-3865213914. Edited by Thomas Zander with introductions by Sandra S. Phillips and George Imdahl.
• New Topographics: Roberts Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Jr.. Göttingen: Steidl, 2009. ISBN 978-3865218278. Includes the work of Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Grohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel, Jr.
• Closer than Fiction: American Visual Worlds around 1970. Walther König, Köln, Germany, 2011. ISBN 978-3863351199. Edited and with introduction by Brigitte Franzen and Anna Sophia Schultz.^[9]
• Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, 1974-1981, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2011. ISBN 978-3791351391. Edited by Elizabeth Hamilton.^[10]
• Here., San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2011. ISBN 978-0-9839917-0-0. Exhibition guide.
• About Face, San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9839917-1-7. Exhibition guide.
• About Face. San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2014. ISBN 978-0-9839917-2-4. Exhibition catalog. Edition of 1000 copies. With forewords by Christopher McCall, and Richard Avedon (from In The American West), an introduction by Philip Gefter, and texts by Sandra S. Phillips, and Ulrike Schneider.

Exhibitions

Solo

• 1972: Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
• 1987: International Museum of Photography, Osaka, Japan
• 1998: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.
• 2007: "Henry Wessel: Photographs," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.^[11]
• 2007: "Henry Wessel," Die Photographische Sammlung, SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany.
• 2014-2015: Incidents, Tate Modern, London.

Group

• 1975: New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.^[12]
• 1978: Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960," Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.^[13]
• 1983: Twentieth Century Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan.
• 1989: Picturing California: A Century of Photographic Genius, Oakland Museum, CA.
• 1991: Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
• 1993: Critical Landscape, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan.
• 1996: Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West 1849 to the Present, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.
• 2000: Walker Evans & Company, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
• 2003: Looking at Photographs, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
• 2005: Amerikanische Street Photography, Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany.
• 2005: Garry Winogrand and American Street Photographers Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, and Henry Wessel, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 2009: Into the Sunset Image of the American West, Museum of Modern Art, New York.^[14]
• 2011-2012: Focus: Los Angeles, 1945-1980, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA.^[15]
• 2011-2012: Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, 1974-1981, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.^[16][17]
• 2011-2012: Here., Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA (May 2011 – January 2012)^[18]
• 2012-2013: About Face, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA (May 2012– April 2013)^[19]

Awards

• 1971: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.^[20]
• 1975: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship in Photography.^[21]
• 1977: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship in Photography.^[22]
• 1978: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship in Photography.^[23]
• 1978: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Collections

Wessel's work is held in the following public and private collections:

References

External links

• TateShots: Henry Wessel (29 May 2014)
• KQED Spark (July 2007)
• New York Times (21 May 2006)
• Art in America (November 2007)
• The New York Times (6 March 2007)
• Galerie Thomas Zander artist page
• "Henry Wessel" Pace/MacGill Gallery