Menu
Menu
Menu
Menu
Since the mid-1960s, the American photographer Henry Wessel (1942-2018) has created a diverse body of work that was shaped from the outset by his interest in the sights and spaces of America. Wessel belongs to a group of photographers called New Topographics, among them Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose work engages in the dialectical relationship of nature and civilization.
Beyond that, Wessel has developed his own thoroughly structured visual language with its characteristic touches of humour and irony. Coincidence, spontaneity and everyday chaos find a natural acceptance in his pictures. Wessel’s photographs often draw attention to quiet and simple scenes and events that could easily be missed. They speak of his intuition and visual sensibility to render scenes in a way that is formally convincing and lyrical at the same time.
In his work group California and the West Henry Wessel put together his core ideas and subjects from the 1960s to the 1990s. Among his preferred motifs are the desert-like landscapes of California and the American West, the vernacular architecture and streets of suburbia, the gardens of the houses, scenes observed during parades or on the beach. Ever since Wessel’s fleeing west from the grey New York winter of 1969, the special light he found in California became a major compositional element in his photographic work. Henry Wessel’s interest in light is antagonistically reflected in the more recent series Night Walk. These photographs, dating from 1995–1998, were made after dark on long walks through residential areas of Los Angeles. In the series Real Estate Photographs, created in 1990 and 1992, Wessel works exclusively in colour. Shooting from the higher vantage of his pick-up, he systematically photographed suburban houses in the area around Richmond, California, which had been Henry Wessel’s home since the 1970s.
Read More:
Wessel: Capturing the Image, Transcending the Subject, The New York Times, Essay by Philip Gefter, 21 May 2006
Born 1942 in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA.
Died 2018 in Point Richmond, California, USA.
Pennsylvania State University, B.A.
State University of New York at Buffalo / Visual Studies Workshop, M.F.A.
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
National Endowment for the Arts Survey Grant
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
Henry Wessel: On the Shore, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Henry Wessel. Documentary Style and Beyond, Centro José Guerrero, Granada, Spain
Henry Wessel. A Walk, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia
Henry Wessel. Summer Light, Fondation A Stichting, Brussels, Belgium
Henry Wessel. A Dark Thread, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
Henry Wessel. Still Photographs, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Standard & Icons. Photography by Henry Wessel, Amerikahaus, Munich, Germany
Henry Wessel. Continental Divide, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Henry Wessel, Tate Modern, London, UK
Henry Wessel. Waikiki, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Henry Wessel. Photographs, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
Henry Wessel. Photographs, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Henry Wessel. Retrospective, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK-Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
International Museum of Photography, Osaka, Japan
Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
When Images Learned to Speak: Conceptualized Documentary Photography from Astrid Ullens, De Schooten Whettnall’s Collection, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France
With Soft Eyes, Center for Photographic Art, CA, USA
Joan Didion: What She Means, Hammer Museum, LA,CA,USA
MOMAT Collection, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
InterStates of Mind: Rewriting the Map of the United States in the Age of the Automobile, Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, Michigan, USA
No Time, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, California
Autophoto, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France
Road Trip, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Seismic Shift, UCR / California Museum of Photography, Riverside, California
Here, Pier 24 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California
Sammlung Falckenberg, Phoenix Hallen, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany
Hyper Real – Kunst und Amerika um 1970, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, SK-Stiftung, Cologne, Germany and Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
NEW TOPOGRAPHICS (Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, Henry Wessel), Preus Museum, Horten, Norway
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Landesgalerie Linz, Austria
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Le paradis, ou presque: Los Angeles (1865-2008), Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saone, France
This Side of Paradise: Los Angeles (1865-2008), Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Re-SITE-ing the West, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Garry Winogrand and the Street Photographers (Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz, Henry Wessel), Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
American Street Photography, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
Ditto – Multiples from the Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois
The Gray Area, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, California
Masterpieces of California Photography: Capturing Light, 1850-2000, Oakland Museum, Oakland, USA Beyond Boundaries: Contemporary Photography in California, Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, California
Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-Depicting Absence/Implying Presence, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, California
Exurbia, Gallery Luisotti, San Monica, California
Blind Date, Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York
Show Time, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California
Walker Evans & Company, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Ditto, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, Washington
MOMA 2000, Modern Starts: People, Places, Things, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
An American Century of Photography, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
Icons – Magnets of Meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Backyards, Robert Mann Gallery, New York
Rethinking Topographics, Gallery Ram, Santa Monica, California
Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West 1849 to the Present, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Facing Eden, 100 Years of Landscape Art, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
Seeing Things: Photographs from 1844 to 1995, Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York
Gesture and Pose: Twentieth Century Photographs, Museum of Modern Art, New York
New Work, New Directions, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Critical Landscape, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan
Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Picturing California: A Century of Photographic Genius, Oakland Museum, Oakland, California
Photographs from the Last Decade, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Photography in California: 1945-1980, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
20th Century Photographs from the MoMa, Museum of Modern Art, New York and Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
American Landscapes: Photographs from the Collection of the MoMa, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960, Museum of Modern Art, New York
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, International Museum of Photography, Rochester
Henry Wessel. A Dark Thread, Mack, London, UK
Henry Wessel. Traffic / Sunset Park / Continental Divide, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Henry Wessel. Incidents, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Henry Wessel. Waikiki, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Henry Wessel, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Henry Wessel. California and the West / Odd Photos / Las Vegas / Real State Photographs / Night Walk, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
California Historical Society, San Francisco, California
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California
Oakland Museum, Oakland, California
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan
KMS Fine Art Group, Baar, Switzerland
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Zander Galerie
Schönhauser Straße 8
50968 Cologne
Germany
Zander Galerie
6 Rue Jacob
75006 Paris
France
