Joel Sternfeld

First published in 1987, Sternfeld’s landmark photographic book, American Prospects, pioneered a new voice in the burgeoning field of color photography. After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship for his urban street photography in 1978, and compelled to broaden his subject, Sternfeld commenced the American Prospects series. In his Fellowship report, Sternfeld described his urge as being “of someone who grew up with a vision of classical regional America and the order it seemed to contain, to find beauty and harmony in an increasingly uniform, technological, and disturbing America” [1]. Sternfeld purchased a Volkswagen camper and a wooden 8 x 10 view camera, and set off to commence a project that would ultimately conclude in 1984. Crisscrossing the country on periodic trips that lasted anywhere from days, to weeks, to months, Sternfeld chose locations where human development came at a juncture with nature – spots where man had transformed the land for purposes of domesticity, agriculture, industry or pleasure. Sternfeld titled his now-iconic images only after their location and the day on which he captured each scene.  Considered today to be one of Sternfeld’s most famous and widely acclaimed photographic series, American Prospects unfolds the contemporary American landscape with ravishing beauty, deadpan wit and ominous uncertainty. Equally complicated as they are beautiful, Sternfeld presents a portrait of America as relevant and insightful today as when the works were first made.

Born in New York in 1944, Joel Sternfeld is a renowned and influential artist using photography, noted for his large-format color photos documenting the American landscape. He earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College and teaches photography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. His works are represented in institutional collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has been the recipient of the Citigroup Photography Prize (2004), the Prix de Rome (1990-91), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1982, 1978), and the National Endowment for the Arts Photographers Fellowship (1980). Approximately twenty books documenting Sternfeld’s projects have been published to date. In 2025, a new edition of American Prospects will be released by Steidl Press. Sternfeld lives and works in New York.

[1] Joel Sternfeld: American Prospects, (New York: D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2012).

[2] Gopnik, Adam. “A Walk on the High Line / The Allure of a Derelict Railroad Track in Spring,” in Joel Sternfeld: Walking the High Line. (Steidl: Göttingen, 2001), p. 51.

[3] “new york voices: A World Above,” thirteen/WNET, 2002.