Joseph Bellows Gallery announced the representation of American photographer Jim Dow. Jim Dow has long been fascinated by the ingenuity and creative spirit found in the built environment. Between 1967 and 1977, his first decade as a young photographer, he drove along old U.S. highways on numerous cross-country road trips, focusing his large format camera on time-worn signage extracted from billboards, diners, gas stations, drive-in theaters, ice cream stands, burger joints, and other small businesses.
Indebted to Harry Callahan, with whom Dow studied at RISD, and the work of Walker Evans, another key mentor, Dow’s early photographs highlight the effects of time’s passage, as commercial tastes and styles shift from one era to the next. Though most of the subjects Dow photographed have long since disappeared, his images avoid nostalgic longing or ironic commentary. With reverence and humor, Dow conveys the importance making one’s mark on the land and celebrates the desire to express individual agency and creativity in the landscape we inhabit.
Born in Boston in 1942, Dow earned a BFA in graphic design and a MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965 and 1968, respectively. Dow has taught photography, photographic histories and contemporary art at Cooper Union, Harvard, Princeton, Vancouver School of Art & Design, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. His work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as Argentina, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Monographs on Dow’s work include: Marking the Land (2007); American Studies (2011) and Signs (2022). His work is in numerous public collections, including: Addison Gallery of American Art, Amon Carter Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Creative Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, The Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nelson-Atkins Museum among others.
Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girard Avenue
La Jolla CA 92037
www.josephbellows.com
