Jeff Cowen (January 9, 1966 in New York City, New York) is an American art photographer. He is known for painterly silver gelatin photo murals and photo collages. Various chemical procedures, mark-making, brushwork, and post darkroom mixed media finishing techniques are often contained in his artworks.
After graduating he worked as an assistant for master American photographers Larry Clark from 1988 to 1990, and Ralph Gibson from 1990 to 1992. Clark was the assistant of W. Eugene Smith and Gibson was the assistant of Dorothea Lange.
In 2001, he moved to Paris, France. In 2005, his first monograph was published by Paris Musées.[2] That monograph contains his early New York work and his painterly Mural collages of nudes. In 2007, Cowen collaborated with filmmaker and writer Andre Labarthe founder of the Cahiers du cinéma for his exhibition called The Lotus Eaters.[3]
In 2007, Cowen located his studio in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, until he returned to live in the United States in 2023.
He was awarded the Thomas Cooke Award for Photography.[4] In 2021, Jeff Cowen was nominated and awarded the Pollock Krasner Grant for Fine Art Still Photography.
Jeff Cowen's works are included in numerous private and public collections all over the world. In 2024, his project "Provence Works" is presented in a joint exhibition by the Huis Marseille Museum for Photography[5] and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam[6]. His works have been shown in Fotografiska Museum[7], Stockholm, Sweden; Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany; DZ Bank Art Collection Frankfurt, Germany; Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany; Huis Marseille, Museum voor Fotografie, Amsterdam, Netherland; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia; among others.
Self-portrait by Jeff Cowen and Csilla Szabo (diptych), 55 x 98 cm, 2011, Edition of 6
Personal life
Cowen taught photography to underprivileged, inner-city kids at LEAP between 1990 and 1994. Cowen discovered and mentored the young and brilliant illegal immigrant Dan-el Padilla[8] and helped him earn a scholarship to Collegiate School in New York City. Padilla later earned a scholarship at Princeton University where he graduated with the highest distinction and was offered full scholarship at Oxford University. Due to Padilla's illegal immigrant status, Padilla and Cowen were both featured in an article in the Wall Street Journal that highlighted some of the absurdity and rigidity of U.S. immigration laws.[9] Dan-el Padilla is currently an associate professor of classics at Princeton University.
Selected exhibitions
2024: Provence Works, Huis Marseille – Museum voor Fotografie, and Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (solo exhibition)
2024: Berlin Works, Fotografiska Stockholm (solo exhibition)
2024: Seance: Jeff Cowen’s Work in Dialogue with Hans Bellmer, Joseph Beuys, Claude Cahun, Sigmar Polke, and others. HOUSE, Berlin
2024: Jeff Cowen, Werner Knaupp, fotodiskurs, Augsburg
2023: Women’s Work, New York Historical Society Museum, New York (group exhibition)
2021: Jeff Cowen. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (solo exhibition)
2020: The Lives and Loves of Images. Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen (group exhibition)
2019: 64 Art Works. Art Collection of The New School, New York (group exhibition)
2019: Jeff Cowen. Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt (solo exhibition)
2019: Jeff Cowen 30 Works. curated by Eric Schlosser, Museum of Modern Art, Tbilisi (solo exhibition)
2018: Recent Work. Michael Werner Kunsthandel, Köln (solo exhibition)
2018: Picture Believer. The Glen Bjørnholt Collection, Oslo (group exhibition)
2018: Elèctric i llunyà. Collection olorVisual, Barcelona (group exhibition)
2017: Jeff Cowen Photoworks 2002 – 2015. Huis Marseille, Museum voor Fotografie, Amsterdam (solo exhibition)
2016: Jeff Cowen Photoworks 2002 – 2015. Ludwig Museum, Koblenz (solo exhibition)
2016: Jeff Cowen Sculpture Photographs. Michael Werner Kunsthandel, Köln (solo exhibition)
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