Mountains, Colorado

Kenneth JosephsonWW-1959-108027

1959·Gelatin silver print·19.1 × 19.1 cm (7 9/16 × 7 9/16 in.)

<p>Kenneth Josephson studied under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at Chicago’s Institute of Design, receiving his master’s degree with a 1960 thesis entitled <em>Exploration of the Multiple Image</em>. Consisting of in-camera multiple exposures—with changes of camera position, focus, time, and subject—this project explored new photographic forms. In this image, the Rocky Mountains become an angular gradient, created by moving the camera eight separate times so that, as Josephson wrote in his thesis presentation, “static subject matter is given a sense of movement which results from the mixing of gray values and forms.” Hugh Edwards acquired 10 of Josephson’s photographs the year that he graduated, demonstrating his early commitment to youthful talent, especially in Chicago.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1959
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 19.1 × 19.1 cm (7 9/16 × 7 9/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Kenneth Josephson

Artist

Kenneth Josephson

Photography

Kenneth Josephson is an American photographer known for conceptual and formally rigorous work that treats the photograph itself as a sculptural or architectural object. Working primarily with black-and-white film since the 1960s, he explores the relationship between the camera's mechanical vision and human perception, often incorporating the frame edge, the photograph's materiality, or reflections within the image plane. His practice examines photography not as transparent documentation but as a constructed medium with its own spatial and temporal logic.

Detroit, MI, USA

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