Michael Eastman

Michael Eastman has established himself as one of the world’s leading contemporary photographic artists. The self-taught photographer has spent five decades documenting interiors and facades in cities as diverse as Havana, Paris, Rome, and New Orleans, producing large-scale photographs unified by their visual precision, monumentality, and painterly use of color. Eastman is most recognized for his explorations of architectural form and the textures of decay, which create mysterious narratives about time and place.

As profiles of various structures, the pictures also showcase the ravages of time amidst their grandeur, presenting profiles loyal to all of the organic imperfections caused by the passage of time and use. Michael Eastman’s photography emphasizes, through painterly technique, a sense of quiet admiration, and unapologetic sincerity, the human stages for political, social, and cultural interaction and the untold stories still echoing within their walls.

As a self-taught photographer, Michael Eastman has been producing large-scale photographs using a 4 x 5-inch format camera, a wide-angle lens, and through long exposures with available light. His pictures have gained renown for their precision, monumentality, and painterly use of color.

Eastman’s photographs have appeared in Time, Life, Art in America, Art News, Art Forum, Communication Arts and American Photographer, and they reside in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and other prestigious institutions. His books include Havana (2011, Prestel), Vanishing America (2008, Rizzoli) and Horses (2003, Knopf).