GALLERY FIVE20

NOW SHOWING

Paul Caponigro: The Impact + Influence

Paul Caponigro is renowned as one of America’s most significant photographers. At the age of thirteen, he began to explore the world around him with his camera and has subsequently sustained a career spanning six decades. Acclaimed for his spiritually moving images of Stonehenge and other Celtic megaliths of England and Ireland, Mr. Caponigro has also photographed the temples, shrines and sacred gardens of Japan. His work inspires viewers with glimpses of the mystical woodland of his native New England. Approaching nature receptively, he prefers to utilize an intuitive focus rather than merely arranging or recording forms and surface details. His unparalleled ability to engage the viewer in the mystical presence concealed in nature continues to leave a lasting contribution to photography. Mr. Caponigro has exhibited and taught throughout the United States and abroad. As a recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships and three National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants, in 2001 he received the Centenary Medal from the Royal Photographic Society in recognition of his significant contribution to the art of photography. Mr. Caponigro’s images are included in most history of photography texts and numerous museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

Exhibiting with Mr. Caponigro will be two regional photographers whose work has been heavily influenced by Mr. Caponigro, Mr. Pradip Malde and Dr. David Dennard. 

Professor Malde is a photographer and professor at the University of the South, Sewanee, TN, where he is the co-director of the Haiti Institute. He is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, for which he recently has completed work about female genital cutting. His works are held in the collections of Museum of the Art Institute, Chicago; Princeton University Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Yale University Museum and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, among others.  

In 1993, Professor Malde, who has been heavily influenced by Mr. Caponigro throughout his photographic career, invited Dr. Dennard to spend a weekend with him during which he introduced Dr. Dennard to Mr. Caponigro’s work.  It was an enlightening moment that has affected Dr. Dennard’s photographic pursuits to this day and ultimately recently resulted in his studying periodically in Mr. Caponigro’s darkroom over the course of a year.  Dr. Dennard has had work exhibited in many galleries around the country over the past few years. 

This exhibition is a tribute to all teachers and the immeasurable impact they can have on their students.