Joel Sternfeld: American Prospects

By Andy Grundberg, Joel Sternfeld, Kerry Brougher

Book Overview

Returning to the original 1987 publication's format, this new edition of Sternfeld's lyrical portrait of America's hopes and sorrows includes previously unseen images

Born of a desire to follow the seasons up and down America, and equally to find lyricism in contemporary American life despite all its dark histories, American Prospects has enjoyed a life of acclaim. Its pages are filled with unexpected excitement, despair, tenderness and hope. Its fears are expressed in beauty, its sadnesses in irony. Oddly enough, the society it seems to presage has now come to be; the ideas of this book bespeak our present moment.
Often out of print, this new edition of Joel Sternfeld's seminal book returns to the format of the original 1987 edition. All of the now classic images within it--alongside a group of never published photographs--examine a once pristine land safeguarded by Indigenous peoples who needed no lessons in stewardship, and a land now occupied by a mix of peoples hoping for salvation within the fraught paths of late capitalism. The result suggests a vast nation whose prospects have much to do with global prospects, a "teenager of the world" unaware of its strengths, filled with idealism and frequent failings. These pictures see all but judge not.
Joel Sternfeld was born in New York City in 1944. He has received numerous awards including two Guggenheim fellowships, a Prix de Rome and the Citibank Photography Award. Sternfeld holds the Nobel Foundation Chair in Art and Cultural History at Sarah Lawrence College. His books published by Steidl include American Prospects (2003), Sweet Earth (2006), Oxbow Archive (2008), First Pictures (2012), Landscape as Longing (2016) with Frank Gohlke, Rome after Rome (2019) and Our Loss (2019).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 396999229X
• ISBN13: 9783969992296
• Release Date: December 2023
• Publisher: Steidl
• Length: 108 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 12.2" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Essential Color

This is an essential volume for those looking at color photography of the United States. This fits within the tradition of Eggleston and Shore and is presented in a large, oversized format. Along with Epstein's Recreation and Soth's Sleeping by The Mississippi this is a distinguished collection.

One of the most important photographic works of the 20th century

The title of this review suggests that I am exaggerating, but I promise that I am not. This book of photography blew me away the first time I opened it. How had I gone for so long without hearing of Joel Sternfeld? This book is full of large, beautifully printed color photographs of a quality I couldn't have expected. Each image is beautifully thought out and perfectly executed. The photographs are sometimes humorous, sometimes somber, and always carry a visual impact. Stephen Shore is an obvious point of reference; both photographers were working with similar materials right around the same time, both traveling the country capturing their view of America. I find Sternfeld's photographs to be placed on a somewhat grander scale, while Shore's photos suggest a more offhand manner. Both have a permanent place on my bookshelf. I can't recommend this book highly enough, I suggest that anyone interested in serious photography buy it right away.

Rust Never Sleeps

What a refreshing twist on the usual coffee table photography book. Sternfeld's photographs of the natural and manmade environment are so interesting. They almost have an old-fashioned hand-colored postcard-feel to them, but the images are often startlingly futuristic. Great contrasts of the ugly and rusting and vacant with beautiful natural landscapes. The publishers did a wonderful job of cleanly presenting the photos to speak for themselves and putting all the verbiage up front.

Joel Sternfeld book American Prospects

JOEL IS A GOOD NAME AND THIS IS A FABOULOS WORK.This man is travelling a lot!!!I want only says that J.Sternfeld is able to meet people and discover particulary little object too that can be fundamental for go inside these pictures,he use colour in a cool way too,soft traditional in colours but in meanings is not really traditional expecially if we related his work in the world of landscape's photography.He use landscape like it was reportage.It is a way for put something else inside.That picture could be sometime strong somentime enchanting but always are intresting me.Put something strange in your picture and maybe that landscape could change his own value. I like a lot ciaoooooo

a landmark poetic document recorded and built by a master

if you want to know where the comtemporary obsession with large format color "street" work came from, this is it. newer books, by artists like alec soth and other color documentary artists, are excellent, important books, but it must at least be noted that the true groundbreakers were working a generation ago, putting out these kinds of books before it was the accepted trend. and simply put, this work along with shore's 'uncommon places' and eggleston's 'guide', are still, in my opinion, unsurpassed. on top of that, the size and reproduction quality of this book are mind-blowing. i can't imagine any photography fan not loving this book, or any serious student not wanting it (for a decent price, of course, which this actually is with the discount.)