Inside the archives of American photographer Ezra Stoller
Ezra Stoller is one of the 20th century's most acclaimed photographers of Modern and Midcentury architecture. A new book and exhibition is set to throw fresh light on his oeuvre, showing his well-known architectural photographs alongside little seen works fuelled by his own personal interests.
Digging into Stoller's archive of more than 50,000 images, the book 'Ezra Stoller: Photographer' (published by Yale University Press) presents the Chicago-born photographer's industrial and domestic work. This sits side by side with his better-known images of Modernist architecture, showing the breadth of his output. It is penned by curator Nina Rappaport and Erica Stoller (the photographer's daughter and director of their agency, Esto).
The book is a timely precursor to the exhibition Beyond Architecture, which opens at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York in January. Aiming to capture a 'lost America', it features visuals taken all around the country, from workers in Queens to conveyor belts at the Heinz factory.
Together they show a new perspective of post-war America, while also offering some of the images that helped define the cultural memory of mid-century design.
CBS Records, 1953
Lifesavers Factory, 1956
Hirshhorn Museum, designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 1955
Power in West', photographed for Fortune Magazine, 1947
Power in West', photographed for Fortune Magazine, 1947
Power in West', photographed for Fortune Magazine, 1947
Power in West', photographed for Fortune Magazine, 1947
Duplan Silk Mills, 1943
Tuskegee Institute Chapel, designed by Paul Rudolph, 1969
Equitable Building, Portland, designed by Pietro Belluschi, 1948
John Hancock Construction, designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 1967
World’s Fair, NY State Pavilion, designed by Philip Johnson, 1964
World’s Fair, NY State Pavilion, designed by Philip Johnson, 1964
Philip Morris Research Building, designed by Ulrich Franzen, 1972
Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1959
Marin County Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1963
Deering House, designed by Paul Rudolph, 1958
Cocoon House, designed by Paul Rudolph, 1951
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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