10/12/06 - 4/15/07

John R. Stromberg, Deputy Director and Chief Curator

This exhibition is a glimpse inside the creative process of two artists separated by time but connected through a single subject: the psychological landscape of American culture. It featured Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)’s Morning in a City, recently treated by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, along with several of the painting’s preparatory sketches, on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art. The exhibition also features three enigmatic photographs by contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson (American, b. 1962), with their accompanying documentary stills. He uses the American suburban experience as the subtext for the underlying psychology of his subjects. His photographs are elaborately staged, and, like a film director, Crewdson works with a professional crew to achieve the particular details that he envisions for the image. The resulting scenes are often surreal, with a foreboding tension surrounding characters situated in an eerie landscape.

About Gregory Crewdson

Born in 1962 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Gregory Crewdson studied photography at the State University of New York at Purchase and received his Master in Fine Arts from Yale University. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Cooper Union, Vassar College, and Yale University. He is represented in New York by Luhring Augustine Gallery and in London by the White Cube Gallery.