On the occasion of the exhibition Ralph Gibson: The Trilogy, 1970–1974, The Eye of Photography presents a special edition featuring a brief overview of Ralph Gibson’s career. You will find here a selection of his most beautiful images from the 1960s, which mark his entry into art photography.
Influenced by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Gibson hitchhiked to Los Angeles and arrived there four days later. He thought of enrolling in the local Art Center to study commercial or fashion photography. But after a short stay with a friend in San Francisco, Gibson met some students from the San Francisco Art Institute, and enrolled there instead. “It was a fabulous night, no doubt about it,” he commented later.
In 1960, he rented a room in a seedy hotel, in the heart of North Beach. He took only two classes that semester: feeling confident about his vocation, he believed that the best way of becoming a photographer would be to leave school. Paul Hassel, one of his instructors, recommended him to Dorothea Lange who was looking for an assistant to help her develop her negatives. Their collaboration lasted a year and a half, during which time Gibson carried out his own work. Throughout that initial period, he was shooting with a Rolleiflex he had bought during his military service. He had his first exhibition at the Photographers’ Roundtable, one of the pioneering photography galleries in the San Francisco region.
His images of Los Angeles were collected in a volume entitled The Strip (1967), which also included photographs of New York, the city where Ralph Gibson lives to this day, and which inspired his next book, The Hawk, published in 1968.
Ralph Gibson: La Trilogie, 1970-1974
October 18, 2017 to January 8, 2018
Pavillon Populaire
121 Allée de Jerusalem
34000 Montpellier
France
