Bill Owens
November 15-December 15, 2001
Opening: Thursday, November 15 from 6-8pm
Bill Owens (b. 1938)
Bill Owens is best known for Suburbia, the book of photographs he published in 1973 and which was one of the first ironic portrayals of suburban America. Equally iconic, though slightly less familiar, are the pictures he took in the lates 60s while working as a photojournalist for The Livermore Independent in California. During his stint at the paper he covered the protests, sit-ins, draftcard burnings and concerts for which 1969 is so notorious. When-in appalling contrast to Woodstock's Sunny Vibes-the Hell's Angels beat one man with pool cues and later killed another during the Stones set at Altamont, Bill Owens was perched overhead in a sound tower, getting it on film. His photographs of the pool cue incident turned out to be haunting documents of the demise of the Summer of Love. In addition to being published in book form and in numerous magazines-notably Rollings Stone, Esquire, Newsweek and Bomb-as well as in the DVD release of the Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter, Owen's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. Highlights include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the LACMA, the Denver Musuem of Art, the SFMOMA, and a recent retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art.
Further Information and images available from the gallery.