BILL OWENS
b, 1938, San Jose, California
Bill Owens, I enjoy giving a Tupperware party in my house, 1971
Bill Owens was born and raised in California. After volunteering in the Peace Corps he picked up photography and began his journey as a documentarian. While living in Livermore, California in the late 60’s, he worked as a photographer for the local newspaper. He became increasingly interested in the suburban areas that became heavily populated after WWII. Owens started photographing middle-class America and would eventually publish a best selling book, Suburbia in 1971. Suburbia is considered one of the most important photography books to date. He went on to publish three more books, Our Kind of People, Working, and Leisure, focusing on the suburbanites of America.
Owens was the recipient of the Guggenheim fellowship, which he received in 1976. He was also awarded two National Endowment for the Arts grants.
Between working commercially and on personal photographic projects, he opened one of the first microbreweries in the country. In the past two decades, his interest lies in the craft distillery business. He founded the American Distilling Institute that publishes a quarterly magazine, and an annual trade show for the craft distilling industry.
Bill Owens continues to photograph the odd and colorful world of 21st Century American culture.
The photographs of Bill Owens are highly sought after and can be found in private and public collections as the Getty Museum, Modern Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of American Art, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery, Dallas, TX. "Bill Owens: New Suburbia"
2005
Lisa Ruyter Gallery, Vienna, Austria
PhotoEspana. Madrid, Spain: Bill Owens
James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery, Dallas, TX
2004
Carla Sozzani Gallery, Milan. Italy. Bill Owens Photography 1964-2003.
International Center for Photography, New York, Bill Owens Leisure.
2003 -SpazioFoto Credito Artiano, Florence, Italy. “Bill Owens: The American Way”
2002
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery Bill Owens Suburbia
Palazzo Santa Margherita, Modena per la Fotografia
2001
A proposito degli anni settanta: Bill Owens “Suburbia” Paul Morris Gallery, Bill Owens Suburbia Color Photographs
2000
Rebecca Camhi Gallery, Athens Greece, Bill Owens, Fall, 2000
UCR /California Museum or Photography, Riverside, Ca, Suburbia; by Bill Owens
ArtandPhotographs, London England, “Images From Suburbia”
San Jose Museum of Art, “The Suburban Seventies: Photographs by Bill Owens”
1998
Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France, Bill Owens
Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, Bill Owens’ Suburbia
1996
Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco, Suburbia Vintage Prints
Blum and Poe Gallery, Los Angeles, Bill Owens
1995
City of Brisbane, California (City Offices), Bill Owens, Photographs of Brisbane, California Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bill Owens Suburban Selections (1970-71)
1994 -American Fine Arts, NY, Photographs from Suburbia, Our Kind of People and Working
1983
Cameravision, Suburbia The Art Museum Association San Francisco, Best of Bill Owens (traveled 1983-85) Virginia
Intermount college, Colorodo State University, Ft Collins November 14 December 12. 1983, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
The White Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel-”Surburbia”
1982
University of New Mexico, Bill Owens-traveling exhibition (1982-3)
Cameravision, Los Angeles- Suburbia, 10th Anniversary Exhibition
Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, Shadai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, “Suburbia”
Gallery kiek inb de KoK, Tallinn, Astonia- “Surburbia”, traveling exhibition.
Buenos Aires and La Plata, Argentina-”Surburbia”
Album Gallery in San Paulo and Buenos Aires for Suburbia
Compendium Bookstore, Sydney, Australia - Surburbia- Basement Gallery
1981
Cannon Photo Gallery, Amsterdam, Munich and London, Bill Owens
Photographic Center of Athens , Athens Greece
G Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles California Suburbia
1980 -La Photo galeria, Madrid, Bill Owens traveling exhibition
1979 -Oregon Gallery, Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon: Working
1978
University of Oregon Museum of Art, Portland -Feb 19 Suburbia
Galerie Breiting, Berlin ,Germany, Bill Owens: Amerikanische Gruppen, Leben in Vorstadten
Libreria & Galleria Pan , Rome Bill Owens immagini da ‘Suburbia” e ‘Our Kind of People’
The Halstead 831 Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan : Suburbia
1977
Showa, Tokyo, Japan, Suburbia
Open Air Gallery, Estonia, Russia, Suburbia
Columbia Gallery of Photography, Columbia, Missouri: Suburbia
La Photo Galeria, Madrid, Spain, Suburbia
1976
Dalhhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bill Owens: Suburbia
Infinite Eye Studio/Gallery, Milwaukee May 22-June 27 Suburbia
1965 -Institute of Jamaica, Jamaica , West Indies -Bill Owens Village Life
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004
Whitney Museum of American Art. Inside Out: Portrait photographs from the permanent collection.
Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art at the Geffen Contemporary. Street Credibility
2003
Peabody Essex Museum. “Family Ties” curated by Trevor Fairbrother
Collection Lambert-musee d’art contemporain, Avignon, France. “Photograhier to photograph”
2002
Barbara Gladstone Gallery “American Standard: (Para)Normality and American Standard (Para)
Normality in Everyday Life Organized by Gregory Crewdson.
Whitney Museum of American Art “Visions from America-Photographs from the Whitney Museum of American Art”
2001
Paul Morris gallery “It’s a wild party and we’re having a great time”
L.A. Galerie Lothar Albrecht, Frankfort, Germany, ‘Places and People’
Oakland Museum of California, Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography 1850-2000
2000
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000
UCR /California Museum or Photography, Riverside, Ca “Rearview Mirror: Automobile Images and American Identities”
1999
December 4, 1999-January 31, 2000.
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York Suburban Folk Tales
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, “Pure Products of America: Photographs 1968-1978 by Robert Adams, Bill Owens and Henry Wessel”
1998
Denver Art Museum, Merge Photo Gallery, A Fine and Private Place: Mortality, Monuments and Memory
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Tucson, Coming of Age
San Jose Museum, Photographic Highlights from the Permanent Collection
1996
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Commonplace Mysteries
1982 -International Center of Photography, New York, Photography in the 60’s and 70’s
1981 -Biennale of Venezie,Italy, Home=Family?
1980 DeCordova Museum-Photography/recent Directions
Temple University-Conference on Visual anthropology
Los Angeles Museum of Natural History
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
Harbor College Art Gallery
1979 -Santa Barbara Museum of Art: Attitudes: Photography in the 1970’s
1978
Museum of Modern Art , New York, Mirrors and windows: American Photography Since 1960
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, Tusen och En Bild/The Thousand and One Pictures
1977 -Neikrug Gallery, America Photographic Statements 12 photographers
1976 -Philadelphia Museum of Art, You Ought to Be in Pictures: American Family Portraits,
1975 -Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery UC Santa Cruz Guggenheim Fellow photographs 1973 Oakland Art Museum De Young Museum, San Francisco New Bay Area Photographers
PUBLICATIONS:
Monographs
Suburbia. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1972
Our Kind of People. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1975
Working: I Do It For The Money; Simon and Schuster, 1977
Documentary Photography, a personal view by Bill Owens: Addison House Publishers, 1978
Publish Your Own Photo Book. Livermore, California ,1979
Suburbia (New and Improved). Fotofolio, New York, 1999 Intro by David Halberstam, Edited by Robert Harshorn Shimshak
Leisure Fotofolio, New York, Edited by Robert Harshorn Shimshak forward by Sofia Coppola, introduction by Gregory Crewdson
COLLECTIONS
Getty Museum
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Whitney Museum of American Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Center for Creative Photography
National Museum of American Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Los Angeles County Art Museum
Berkeley Art Museum
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm
Oakland Museum
San Jose Museum
St Louis Art Museum
The Minneapolis Institute of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Harvard University
Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Caisse des depots et consignations, Paris
Fonds National D’Art Contemporain, Paris
Fonds Regional des Pays de la Loire, France
Fonds Regional de Languedoc-Rousillion, France
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
* In 1983, Bill Owens founded Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward, California, one of the first pub breweries in the United States, He presently resides in Hayward California. His most popular beers are Pumpkin Ale and Alimony Ale.
