Paul Caponigro:

Paul Caponigro’s photographs of the natural world explore the mystical nature of the gelatin silver print.  Whether the subject is landscape or still life,Caponigro's engagement with the natural world is both palpable and poetic. Born in Boston in 1932, Caponigro's fascination with the spiritual world began with his initial interest in the medium of photography at the age of thirteen. After attending Boston University to study piano, he again became attracted to photography and between the years of 1955 and 1957, he studied with Minor White, the enormously influential photographer and teacher.  Paul Caponigro’s first one-man exhibition took place at the George Eastman House in 1958. In Caponigro’s work, the inner eye and the outer world are interconnected in a basic, almost primal way. And that primacy is conveyed in Caponigro's silver prints, which possess a tactile quality that is all too rare. Paul Caponigro is considered to be one of the medium’s most accomplished and highly regarded printers. Paul Caponigro’s gelatin silver prints are, indeed, exquisite examples of the print as object. His mastery of the craft of darkroom photographic printing results in silver prints that almost have a third dimension. As the artist says, “ One might become aware of suggestions whispered by the interaction of tonalities within each print. It is a silent realm worth exploring.” 

Paul Caponigro's work was the subject of an exhibition at the Yale Museum for British Art in 2014. Paul Caponigro has influenced numerous photographers through his extensive teaching and workshops. In 1966, Caponigro was the recipient of the first of two Guggenheim Foundation grants (the second was awarded to him in 1975). With his first Guggenheim Grant, Caponigro traveled to Ireland and England in order to study the ancient stone edifices there. Another grant, from the Arts Council of Great Britain, to photograph in Northern Ireland. Caponigro has also been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts grants. Caponigro lived in Redding, Connecticut from 1967 to 1970. In an interview in 2006, Caponigro stated, “For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes.”
Gelatin silver prints are available in four standard paper sizes: 8x10 inches, 11x14 inches, 16x20 inches and 20x24 inches, however, not all images are available in all sizes. Actual print sizes will be slightly smaller than stated due to the proportions of the image and trimming of borders.