Paul Caponigro (born 1932) stands among the foremost landscape photographers of our century. He is an artist who places technical perfection in the service of an intense, mystical sensibility. He once stated that, “photography is a medium, a language, through which I might come to experience directly, live more closely with, the interaction between myself and nature.” In the late 1950s Caponigro studied with Minor White, finding in White’s teaching both an inspiration and a challenge to pursue his own vision. For Caponigro this would mean not only refining his craft to its highest potential, but learning to approach nature receptively, intending, in his own words, “to sense an emotional shape or grasp some inner visitation.”
Caponigro’s first one-man exhibition took place at the George Eastman House in 1958. In 1960, Caponigro became a consultant for Polaroid Corporation in the photo-research department. During this time, he also began teaching photography part-time at Boston University. Since that time he has exhibited and taught workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Today his original photographs reside in most all major museum collections.
Mystery infuses his images, whether of New England’s dark woodlands, the brooding megaliths and Celtic stone crosses of Britain and Ireland, or desert landscapes in the Southwest transfigured by the sun. He states, “At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to ‘hear through the eyes’.”
Caponigro is also a dedicated pianist, and considers his life with music to be essential to his photographic imagery. He once described the greatest lesson ever taught to him by his piano teacher, the late Alfredo Fondacaro, as follows: “…that the effort, diligence, and care required in practicing must be quickly suspended when pressure coming from anxiety or a desire for fast results causes them to degenerate.” Looking at his photographs, it becomes clear that this lesson has had a profound impact on his life’s work.
Two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts have been awarded to Caponigro over the course of his photographic career in recognition of his singularly masterful and uncompromising artistry. He continues to delight the photographic community with his glorious photographic dreamscapes, most recently producing a compelling series of still life studies.
Print Information: All photographic prints are archivally processed gelatin silver prints made from original photographic negatives by Paul Caponigro. Prints are dry-mounted on 4-ply, acid-free mat board. They are window matted and signed in pencil on the front of the overmat at the lower right corner of the print, and are ready to frame. No digital manipulation is used at any stage of the process.
Prints are available in four standard paper sizes: 8×10″, 11×14″, 16×20″ and 20×24″. For both technical and aesthetic reasons, not all images are available in all sizes (please inquire). Actual print sizes will be slightly smaller than stated due to the proportions of the image and trimming of borders.
Prints are produced in an open, unnumbered edition. Print prices are set by the artist and start at $6,000.
Click here to view Paul Caponigro: Veiled Yet Revealed ~ Masterworks from Fifty Years,
our special retrospective exhibition and sale of Paul Caponigro’s fine art photographs.
Click here to view Paul Caponigro: Of the Earth, Still Life Studies 2001~2004,
our exhibition and sale of a brand new body of work by Paul Caponigro.
All artwork is copyright © of the respective artist or estate. All rights reserved. Biographical information from the book, The Wise Silence: Photographs by Paul Caponigro, by Paul Caponigro and Marianne Fulton. Copyright © New York Graphic Society Books; Little, Brown and Company, Boston; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, 1983. All rights reserved.
Contact us by Email
Or call 505-310-SOUL (7685)
