Richard Gordon

Gitterman Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of vintage black and white photographs from the 1970’s by Richard Gordon. The exhibition will open with a reception for the artist on Wednesday, September 12th from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through Saturday, November 17th.

Taken primarily in New York City and along the West Coast, Gordon’s images examine the role of photography and its relationship with reality. Much of the work appears in Gordon’s 1978 book Meta Photographs and as the title suggests they are often photographs about photography. Gordon’s images are a part of an early discourse about how society has used photography as a means of representation. Though he is theorizing about the medium, his images often are witty, even humorous, while formally exploring the exotic of the everyday.

Richard Gordon was born in Chicago in 1945. He studied Political Science at the University of Chicago and did not begin photographing until he worked at a photography studio in 1965. Early in Gordon’s career, Robert Frank critiqued his work and stated that he “loved photography too much.” Gordon frequently makes photographic references in his work and pays homage to the photographers who influenced him: Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Helen Levitt. Bookmaking has been an important element of Gordon’s photography from the beginning; he created his own press, Chimaera Press, and published Meta Photographs (Chimaera Press, 1978), One More for the Road: The Autobiography of a Friendship 1966-1996 (Flâneur Bookworks, 1996), American Surveillance: Someone to Watch Over Me (Chimaera Press, 2009), and Notes from the Field (Chimaera Press, 2012), as well as handmade and limited edition books.

Richard Gordon’s photographs are represented in many institutional collections including: Art Institute of Chicago; Bibliothéque National, Paris; Centre Nationale de la Photographie, Paris; Corcoran Gallery of Art; J. P. Getty Museum (Wagstaff Collection); Library of Congress; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; New York Public Library; Oakland Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Stanford Museum of Art; and University of Colorado, Boulder.