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Dan Estabrook | |
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| Born | 1969 (age 55–56) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
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| Known for | Photography |
| Spouse | Megan Boone |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards | National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1994) |
| Website | danestabrook |
Dan Estabrook (born 1969) is an American photographer who creates contemporary images by combining 19th-century photographic processes with hand-painted and drawn elements. He received an artist's fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994. [1] His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago [2] and the North Carolina Museum of Art, which presented a mid-career retrospective spanning 30 years of his practice in 2024. [3] [4]
Estabrook was born in 1969 [3] in Boston, Massachusetts. [5] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1990, where he studied alternative photographic techniques with Christopher James, [6] and completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1993. [1] During and after graduate school, he studied post-mortem photography. [6]
Seeing the exhibition The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993 strongly influenced Estabrook's approach to historical processes. [6] In 1994, soon after completing his graduate studies, Estabrook received an artist's fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts. [1]
His work has been exhibited at institutions including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, and the University of Kentucky Art Museum. [4] [7] [8] In 2024, the North Carolina Museum of Art organized Forever and Never: Photographs by Dan Estabrook, a retrospective covering 30+ years of his work. The exhibition examined Estabrook's use of photographic history and material experimentation, and ran from September 2024 through January 2025. [4]
Estabrook has taught photography and visual studies at several institutions. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, [1] visiting artist at Lesley University, [9] and instructor at the Penland School of Craft. [10]
Estabrook is part of a broader movement of photographers returning to historical processes. He works with early photographic processes, including calotypes, salt prints, tintypes, ambrotypes, and albumen prints, which he adapts to create contemporary images. [11] [6] [12]
His photographs often include hand-painted or drawn elements and combine found and original imagery. [13] He hand-paints with gouache and watercolor to alter subjects and uses rust as an additional material element. [6] Rather than simply accepting the flaws inherent in antique processes, Estabrook deliberately cultivates imperfections, stains, and signs of deterioration to create a sense of temporal distance. [12] He incorporates cloth as a recurring motif, drawing on its various uses in early photography as backdrop, shroud, or classical drapery. [12]
Estabrook's inspirations include anonymous photographs collected from flea markets, 19th-century post-mortem photography, and late-19th-century medical books. [6]
Estabrook has been described as working at "the cutting edge of the antiquarian avant-garde," [14] referencing the "stiff, stagey quality of 19th-century photography" while capturing "the sense of magic and mystery evident in early works" by pioneers like William Henry Fox Talbot. [15]
While many artists have experimented with early photographic processes, Estabrook creates "cryptic, compelling imagery" that balances nostalgic form with "a peculiarly playful and contemporary edge". [15] Critics have noted his willingness to approach historical photography with humor and irreverence, distinguishing his conceptual approach from more technically purist practitioners. [12] His photographs become "lost objects" onto which viewers project their own sentiments. [16]
His practice addresses memory, time, and the physical nature of the photograph. His work has been described as a dialogue between photography's past and its shift in the digital era. [17]
Estabrook has a background in skateboarding and created zines before pursuing photography. [6] He has described his artistic practice as rooted in the DIY ethic of punk rock and skateboarding. [6]
He lives in Carroll Gardens. [18] He is married to actress Megan Boone. [19] They have one daughter. [20]
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