Studio Baer's stunning Joel Meyerowitz retrospective is a thing of sheer beauty

Date
22 October 2012

As design commissions go, being asked to produce the limited edition two volume book documenting the career of one of America’s most iconic photographers must be both exhilarating and a bit terrifying. But London-based Studio Baer have more than risen to the challenge with this beautiful Joel Meyerowitz retrospective for Phaidon.

With nearly 600 of Joel’s photographs on show, the designers let his brilliance speak for itself in a series of big, beautifully reproduced images. But there’s a few neat tricks as well like the specially created graphic novel insert based on Joel’s movie Pop (a DVD of which comes in a slip-pocket at the end of the book) and another insert who presents paired colour and monochrome images side-by-side.

As Joel explains in the video interview below, his practice has evolved along with photography which has gone from being something “amateur” and “trade” to " to something that has a reigning place in the art world" and so his tale is a fascinating microcosm of this artform’s development since the 1960s to which Studio Baer have done real justice.

With a weighty £500 price tag it’s not going cheap but when a book looks this good it goes some way to justifying such an outlay.

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

Above

Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

Above

Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

Above

Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

Above

Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

Above

Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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Studio Baer: Joel Meyerowitz – Taking My Time

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

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