True to his Leica, Ralph Gibson moves among genres including nudes, portraits, and still lifes while creating new categories of vision. This book is the most comprehensive collection by the acclaimed and prolific American photographer, spanning more than six decades of image-making.
Ralph Gibson travels extensively and works primarily in evocative series, combining visual reveries in monochrome and color. Titles such as The Somnambulist, Déjà-Vu, Days at Sea and Chiaroscuro underscore the distinctive poetic sensibility that characterizes his work.
He began working with Dorothea Lange in 1960, moved to New York in 1967, and was soon discussed alongside photographers such as Larry Clark and Diane Arbus.
The photographs and series can speak for themselves, but for Gibson there is also a philosophy behind the image, and he presents his ideas in the accompanying short texts. He draws close to his subjects and meditates on them in a way matched only by the silence of the image.
Produced in close collaboration with the artist, this book presents more than six decades of image-making. From Gibson’s earliest photographs in San Francisco, Hollywood, and New York in the ’60s through 2025, it is the most comprehensive collection by this acclaimed photographer.
Ralph Gibson began taking photographs while serving in the U.S. Navy in the ’50s and later assisted Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank before establishing his own studio in New York. Gibson received grants from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation and was appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2002.
Ralph Gibson. Photographs 1960–2024
Pages: 552
Suggested retail price: €60.00
Publisher: Taschen
