The Hulett Collection worked with Joseph Sterling‘s estate to bring you a selection of his most emotive images from the series Age of Adolescence.
Joseph Sterling began photographing by age eleven, in his native Texas. Inspired by a teacher and a single photograph by Harry Callahan that he saw in a magazine, Sterling left his home state and Texas State College in 1956, transferring to Chicago and the Institute of Design. There he studied under Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Frederick Sommer, receiving his B.S. in 1959 and then his M.S. in 1962. Sterling’s Master’s thesis was called “the Age of Adolescence,” a heartfelt but technically rigorous photographic essay describing the hope, energy and uncertainty that defined the world of American working class teenagers – created within the aesthetic framework of pattern and design taught at the ID (and the Bauhaus before it).
Sterling also helped establish the photography department at Columbia College of Chicago and has taught and lectured at both the Institute of Design and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Among other publications, Sterling’s work has appeared in Aperture magazine and Time-Life’s “This Fabulous Century.” His photographs can also be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, George Eastman House, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.
The Hulett Collection
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