Beyond Documentary Style

Publisher's description

This book collects the great retrospective of the American photographer Henry Wessel that will be shown in February 2022 at the José Guerrero Center in Granada and that includes a careful selection of his most representative photographs. A trip to the American West through the camera of this enormous photographer in whose photographs light and forms take center stage .

Wessel's visual sensibility captures spontaneous and everyday images, with great attention to calm and simple scenes, sometimes adding touches of irony and humor. Wessel is mainly known for his black and white images taken during the trips he made through various American states in search of reasons to photograph. His photographs of car parks and swimmers are remarkable.

The book also includes illustrative images by contemporary authors of Henry Wessel, such as Ed Ruscha, Lee Friedlander, Diane Airbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Nicholas Nixon, Robert Adams, and Walker Evans .

Henry Wessel (United States, 1942-2018) belongs to the group of photographers gathered at the influential exhibition at the George Eastman House in Rochester in 1975, New Topographics, whose work focuses on the relationship between nature and civilization. His photographs are part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the George Eastman House in Rochester in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, among others.