Joel Meyerowitz

Joel Meyerowitz is one of the most highly regarded photographers of the of the twentieth century. Alongside William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, he drove the repositioning of colour photography from the margins to the mainstream.

Inspired by street photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, Meyerowitz's work is primarily composed of large-format street photographs, capturing fleeting moments of quintessentially American life, culture, and political unrest. 

Speaking about the role of street photographers in 20th-century art, he observed that “the thought for us was always: ‘How much could we absorb and embrace of a moment of existence that would disappear in an instant?’ And, ‘Could we really make it live as art?” 

As the only photographer allocated unrestricted access to Ground Zero in Manhattan, he memorably photographed the residual aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, producing an important archive of photographs of the tragedy.