Kenneth Josephson

An influential conceptual photographer since the 1960s, Kenneth Josephson uses his work to call attention to the physical act of photography. For instance, Josephson has employed techniques such as layering photographs within photographs in order to pinpoint degrees of both truthfulness and illusion within the medium.

An example of this type of visual statement that lead critics to classify Josephson's photography as conceptual is his most famous photograph, New York State, 1970 from his series Images within Images. This image shows the artist's hand extended in front of him over the ocean, holding a photograph of a sailing ship.

Influenced by photography innovators Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, Josephson examines the intricacies of photography in the context of artistic practice in his work. For over 35 years, the artist served as a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was also the founder of the Society for Photographic Education. Josephson has received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship as well as two National Endowment of the Arts fellowships.