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by Paul Caponigro
Paul Caponigro was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932. After attending public school he studied piano at Boston University. Drafted into the US Army in 1953 he was stationed in San Francisco as a photographer.
After Caponigro left the Army he studied and worked with Ansel Adams and Minor White - two illustrious photographers who had a deep influence on his photographic methods and aesthetics. He jokes that he learned the Zone system and the Zen system respectively from those teachers.
In 1958 Caponigro had his first solo exhibition at George Eastman House. In 1960 he began teaching photography at Boston University, the first of many part-time teaching and workshop positions he has held.
In 1962 he published his first portfolio of original prints and in 1967 the first monograph devoted to his work was published by Grossman, New York. An enlarged edition of this was published by Aperture in 1972.
Awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1966 Caponigro travelled to England and Ireland, and returned there nearly every year for the next decade to photograph. In 1975 he was awarded a second Guggenheim and worked briefly in Japan the following year.
Not only did Caponigro continue to travel, photograph, exhibit, publish and teach for many years but he also explored his feelings about the world in essays, poetry and music.
In 1994 Caponigro simply stopped photographing and retired to his home near Cushing, Maine. It is here that he finds the inspiration for his current body of work - exquisite still lifes.
Selected solo exhibitions
| 1958 | George Eastman House, Rochester, New York |
| 1963 | A Photographers Place, Philadelphia |
| 1968 | Museum of Modern Art, New York (toured the United States) |
| 1973 | Art Institute of Chicago |
| 1975 | Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
| 1979 | Photo Gallery International, Tokyo |
| 1985 | Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
| International Center of Photography, New York | |
| 1986 | Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona |
| 1998 | point light gallery, Glebe, NSW |
| 2000 | point light gallery, Surry Hills, NSW |
| 2003 | Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy |
Selected monographs
Paul Caponigro.--New York : Millerton, 1967, revised
and enlarged, Aperture, 1972.
Paul Caponigro : photography, 25 years.--Philadelphia
: The Photography Gallery, 1981.
Seasons : photographs and essay.--Boston, Mass. : Little,
Brown, 1988.
Paul Caponigro : masterworks from forty years.--Carmel
: Photography West Graphics, 1993.
The voice of the print.--Portland, Maine : Muse Press,
1994.
Meditations in light.--[USA] : The Morris Press, [1996].
New England Days : photographs by Paul Caponigro.--Boston,
Mass. : David Godine, 2002