Joel Sternfeld

Life and work

Sternfeld earned a BA from Dartmouth College and teaches photography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. He began taking color photographs in 1970 after learning the color theory of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers. Color is an important element of his photographs.

American Prospects (1987) is Sternfeld's most known book and explores the irony of human-altered landscapes in the United States. To make the book, Sternfeld photographed ordinary things, including unsuccessful towns and barren-looking landscapes.

On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam (1997), is about violence in America. Sternfeld photographed sites of recent tragedies. Next to each photograph is text about the events that happened at that location.

From 1991 to 1994 Sternfeld worked with Melinda Hunt to document New York City's public cemetery on Hart Island, resulting in the book "Hart Island" (1998).

Sternfeld has also published books about social class and stereotypes in America (Stranger Passing (2001)), an abandoned elevated railway in New York (Walking the High Line (2002)), and Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America (2006).

When It Changed (2007) contains close-up portraits of delegates debating global warming at the 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal.

Exhibitions

1977: Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.

2011: Joel Sternfeld – Farbfotografien seit 1970, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.

2011–2012: Joel Sternfeld – Color Photographs since 1970, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands.

2012: Joel Sternfeld – Farbfotografien seit 1970, Albertina, Wien, Austria.

Awards

1978-1982: Guggenheim Fellowship.

1985: Higashikawa Prize, Japan.

1980: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

1990-91: Prix de Rome.

2004: Citigroup Photography Prize, in association with The Photographers' Gallery, London.

2013: Montgomery Fellowship, Dartmouth College.

Publications

Campagna Romana: The Countryside of Ancient Rome. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. ISBN 978-0-67941-578-7.

Hart Island. Zurich, Berlin, New York: Scalo, 1998. ISBN 978-3-931141-90-5. Includes a text by Melinda Hunt.

Treading on Kings. Göttingen: Steidl, 2003. ISBN 978-3-88243-837-6.

When It Changed. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. ISBN 978-3-8652-1-278-8.

Sweet Earth-Experimental Utopias in America. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. ISBN 978-3-86521-124-8.

Oxbow Archive. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. ISBN 978-3-86521-786-8.

iDubai. Göttingen: Steidl, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86521-916-9.

First Pictures. Göttingen: Steidl, 2011. ISBN 978-3-86930-309-3.

Walking the High Line. Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86521-982-4.

On This Site: Landscape in Memorian. Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86930-434-2.

Stranger Passing. Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86930-499-1

American Prospects. New York, NY: Distributed Art Publishers / Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. ISBN 978-3-88243-915-1.