"Developable Surface"

March 7, 2019—April 20, 2019 | Opening Reception Thursday April 4, 6:00-8:00pm

James Harris Gallery is pleased to present Developable Surface, a group exhibition of 20th century American photography.   The show includes images by Paul Caponigro, William Clift, Emmett Gowan, Eliot Porter, and Bradford Washburn.  The subject matter of the photographs is primarily landscape with an emphasis on texture.    As modernists, these artists were concerned with the medium’s ability to bring a new angle on the ordinary, candidly and often abstractly representing the world through their own process of discovery.  Developable Surface refers the mathematical idea that renders a three-dimensional surface flattened onto a plane with stretching or compressing any part of it.   In this way, the selected works demonstrate how each photographer translated a landscape into a work of art through framing to capture the grandeur of a location onto an intimate flat sheet of developable paper.   

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"Nahant Beach, Massachusetts, from Portfolio II" 1958
"Stonehenge" 1978
"Cliff, Moonlight Creek, San Juan River, May 23, 1962" 1962
"Escalante River Outwash, Glen Canyon, September 2" 1962
"White House Ruins, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona" c. 1976
“Lone Footsteps in Winter, Tokositna River, Alaska” 1979
“Bear Cove, Spirit Lake, Mount St. Helens” 1980

Paul Caponigro

Emmet Gowin

Eliot Porter

Bradford Washburn

William Clift