Collection Information
Size: 7 Items, Sound recording, master: 7 memory cards (6 hr., 3 min.), secure digital, 1.25 in.; 81 Pages, Transcript
Summary: Interview of Emmet Gowin, conducted by Frank Goodyear for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution at the Gowins' home in Danville, Virginia, on May 13-14, 2010.
Gowin speaks of his upbringing and how he decided to become a Quaker; his relationship with his sister, who had Down Syndrome; growing up in Chincoteague, VA and other Virginia towns; going to business school in Richmond; meeting his wife Edith; transitioning from Richmond Professional Institute to work with Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design; learning different techniques of printing pictures; studying with Frederick Sommer; the making and reception of his early family photographs of Edith, the Boohers, and his children; other photographic projects including the Mount St. Helens eruption, photographs in the Middle East, Europe, and South America, nuclear test sites in the western U.S., and his collection of moths; teaching at Princeton University; his attitude toward Postmodernism; how the Light Gallery began; and his artistic influences, including Callahan, Sommer, Robert Frank, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Eugéne Atget, Hercules Seghers, William Blake, and others. Gowin also recalls Peter Bunnell, Grant Gentry, Fazal Sheikh, Peter McGill, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Elaine Pagels, and others.