HOME Larry Silver Suburban Vision (Connecticut) Photographs Larry Silver Early New York Photographs Larry Silver Early California (Muscle Beach) Photographs Larry Silver China Photographs Suburban Vision Press Release Larry Silver ArtNews Review Larry Silver New Yorker Review Larry Silver IPA Awards Suburban Vision Catalogue PRESS RELEASE December 7, 2003 Westport Photographer Larry Silver has received the International Photo Awards (IPA) "Photographer of The Year Award " in the Nature Division. This award was selected by a board of esteemed photo editors, curators, gallery owners, art directors and other luminaries from the international photograph y community. The goal of the IPA is to salute and achievements of the world’s finest photographers, to discover new and emerging talent, and to promote the appreciation of photography. Silver was given the "Photographer of The Year Award /Nature Division" for his photographic images stemming from his newly created Abstract Waterscape Series . These images, each printed by the artist in gelatin silver in his Shelton Connecticut Studio, are part of a two-year work in progress documenting natural water bodies across the United States. Larry Silver began photographing the streets and subways of New York City in 1949 at the age of 15. Silver studied photography at the High School of Industrial Art, New York (1949-53). The School's proximity to Peerless Camera Stores enabled Silver to meet numerous members of the Photo League, including W. Eugene Smith, Weegee and Lou Bernstein, who became a strong influence on his work. In Silver's senior year, he won first prize in the Scholastic-Ansco Photography Awards and was granted a scholarship to the Art Center School, Los Angeles (1954-56). During visits to the Santa Monica Beach, Silver photographed the local weightlifters, body builders, and acrobats. This celebrated series "Muscle Beach" (1954) was the subject of a solo exhibition at the International Center of Photography in 1985 and again in 1999 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Upon moving from New York City to Westport, Connecticut in 1973, Larry Silver began his ambitious document Suburban Vision. “The city streets and subways that supplied the inspiration for my photographs were traded for country roads and beaches. I saw an opportunity to capture both a lifestyle and a landscape that were previously foreign to me as a native New Yorker,” Silver recounts. Photographs such as “Beach Showers,” 1980 and the “Jogger,” 1979 depict isolated human figures in strongly composed graphic environments. This body of work is stylistically reminiscent of his Photo League material, yet demonstrates the evolution of his lyrical and balanced compositions that would define Silver’s trademark style. His work is in many museums and private collections. Silver's works also are in the permanent collections of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum of Art, ICP, George Eastman House, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the United Nations, Yale University Art Gallery and The Smithsonian Art Museum among others. Larry Silver’s Connecticut exhibits include University of Connecticut Storrs and Stamford, University of Bridgeport, Housatonic Museum of Art, Norwalk Community College, Connecticut Graphic Arts Center & Museum and Westport Art Center. Silver’s work can be seen at brucesilversteingallery.com and www.larrysilver.com