Bill Owens

The American Dream

You are invited to come to Carmel Visual Arts and view the Bill Owens exhibit

Exhibitions

Bill Owens! What can be said about Bill Owens that The New York Times hasn’t already said on more than one occasion? …Or captured in one of his many books, like Suburbia, Working, Leisure or the soon to be released Altamont. 

Reagan on TV, 1972

Sunday afternoon we get it together. I COOK THE STEAKS AND MY WIFE MAKES THE SALAD. 1970

This is our second annual Fourth of July block party. This year thirty-three familes came for beer, barbecued chicken, corn on the cob, potato salad, green salad, macaroni salad, and watermelon. After eating and drinking we staged our parade and fireworks. 1972

Divers, Monterey Bay, 1976

The middle class has no taste for art! I am not a great artist , but people think I am because I have long hair., 1976

As a photographer with wry anthropological tendencies, Bill Owens has captured our childhood, our parent’s lust for life and the absurd photogenic side of American culture. He is the thermometer for west coast pop culture that is celebrated in New York’s finest galleries and museums. Take a stroll through the Whitney Museum of American Art with Bill Owens’ photographs and you may see your own front porch. He has been shown at Play in the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and in Little Boxes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and venues around the SF Bay area.

Read more about Bill Owens in The Smithsonian Magazine