A member of the Photo League, Larry Silver (b. 1934) began his career by photographing the streets and subways of New York City, and has continued to capture the lifestyles and social landscapes that surround him for more than fifty years. From his images of local weightlifters, body builders, and acrobats populating the beaches of Santa Monica, to his documentation of the isolated relationship between the inhabitants and the physical landscape of the evolving metropolitan suburb of Westport, Connecticut, Silver’s compositions are embedded with a lyricism and balance that define his trademark style. In 2003 Silver broke away from documentary work, and began to create altered landscape images through experimental dark room techniques and paper manipulation. The artist’s new direction would result in series such as From the Medium to the Message, capturing water abstractions that bear witness to the effects of people in their environment, and New Vision, featuring one-of-a-kind compositions that relate most readily to Abstract Expressionist works and experimental imagery from the Bauhaus School.
Born in 1934 in New York, Silver studied photography at the High School of Industrial Art in 1949. The school's proximity to Peerless Camera Store enabled Silver to meet numerous members of the prestigious Photo League, including W. Eugene Smith, Weegee and Lou Bernstein. In Silver's senior year, he won first prize in the Scholastic-Ansco Photography Awards, and was granted a full scholarship to the Art Center School in Los Angeles. He has had three solo exhibitions with Bruce Silverstein in 2002, 2007 and 2011.
He has had group and solo exhibitions in prominent institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Tampa Museum of Art, Florida; International Center of Photography, New York; New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Delaware Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing. He was also featured in the exhibition The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 at the Jewish Museum, New York.
Larry Silver’s work is in over 25 museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Smithsonian Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut; and the George Eastman House, Rochester.
His work has been published in numerous books and catalogues including Made in California (2000); New York, Portrait of a City (2010); This Was the Photo League (2001) and Suburban Visions (2002).
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LARRY SILVER’S PHOTOS OF THE CONNECTICUT LANDSCAPE SHOW A NEW SIDE OF THE WESTPORT PHOTOGRAPHER
Keith Loria, CT Insider, March 14, 2022 -
LIFELONG PROJECTS: INVALUABLE COWANS AND SILVER PHOTOS AT FAIRFIELD LIFELONG PROJECTS: INVALUABLE COWANS AND SILVER PHOT
Brian Goslow, Artscope, March 3, 2022 -
LARRY SILVER FEATURED IN VARIANCE MAKING, UNMAKING, AND REMAKING DISABILITYMade between 1735 and 2021, these works ask u
RISD Museum, February 1, 2022 -
EXHIBITION REVIEW: REWIND: 20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
Emily Capone, Musée: Vanguard of Photography Culture, January 10, 2022 -
LARRY SILVER AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
the New Yorker, January 4, 2016 -
LARRY SILVER AT THE HOUSOTONIC MUSEUM OF ART
Housotonic Museum of Art, October 6, 2015 -
LARRY SILVER AT WESTPORT LIBRARY
Connecticut Post, April 15, 2015
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13 Ways of Looking at Landscape: Larry Silver's Connecticut Photographs
Fairfield University Art Museum 22 Mar - 18 Jun 2022 Gallery Exhibitions -
20th Anniversary Exhibition
REWIND 16 Dec 2021 - 19 Feb 2022 Gallery ExhibitionsBruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to announce REWIND, a celebration of our 20th anniversary. Featuring works selected from over one hundred exhibitions, REWIND is an opportunity to revisit the gallery's...Read more -
AT THE WATER'S EDGE: BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY IN WESTPORT & BEYOND BY LARRY SILVER
The Westport Library 6 Dec 2019 - 24 Feb 2020 -
Larry Silver
New Vision 13 Oct - 19 Nov 2011 Gallery ExhibitionsBruce Silverstein / 20 is pleased to announce New Vision, the gallery’s third solo show by the artist Larry Silver.Read more -
DISCOVERIES
A special selection of extraordinary photographs from the gallery's private inventory 8 Jul - 6 Aug 2010 Gallery ExhibitionsBruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to announce DISCOVERIES, an exhibition featuring an eclectic selection of rare and noteworthy works by 35 known and lesser-known artists from the 20 th century.Read more -
Discoveries
A special selection of extraordinary photographs from the gallery's private inventory 16 Jun - 8 Aug 2009 Gallery ExhibitionsBruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to announce DISCOVERIES, an exhibition featuring an eclectic selection of rare and noteworthy works by lesser-known artists from the 20th century.Read more -
Larry Silver
From the Medium to Message 11 Jan - 17 Feb 2007 Gallery ExhibitionsBruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to announce Larry Silver From the Medium to the Message, an exhibition tracing the artist’s development over the past half century.Read more -
TOPOGRAPHICS
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM 1844 TO THE PRESENT 2 Oct - 13 Nov 2004 Gallery Exhibitions
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The Armory Show
9 - 12 Sep 2021Bruce Silverstein is pleased to return to the 2021 edition of The Armory Show. This year, the gallery will present a timely installation that honors...Read more -
Paris Photo
8 - 11 Nov 2018Recognized today as one of the most influential figures in modern photography, the Hungarian artist, designer and educator, György Kepes (1906-2001) was one of the...Read more -
The Photography Show
Presented by AIPAD 5 - 8 Apr 2018Featured Artists: Werner Bischof, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Constantin Brâncuși, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mark Cohen, Elliot Erwitt, Walker Evans, Mishka Henner, Todd Hido, André Kertész, Dorthea Lange,...Read more -
The Armory Show
2 - 5 Mar 2017Featured Artists: Constantin Brâncuși, Bill Brandt, Eric Fischl, Mishka Henner, Todd Hido, André Kertész, Alfred Leslie, René Magritte, Shinichi Maruyama. Lisette Model. Max Neumann. Cindy...Read more