Bill Owens: Suburbia

© All works copyright Bill Owens Archive

Bill Owens was born and raised on a farm in Northern California. After hitchhiking around the world and a stint in the Peace Corps, he became a staff photographer for the Livermore Independent in 1968. Suburban California life soon caught his fancy. “At first I suffered culture shock,” he wrote. “The people I met enjoy the life-style of the suburbs. They have realized the American Dream. They are proud to be home owners and to have achieved material success.”

Suburbia, first published in 1972 (the same year as Diane Arbus's seminal monograph), was a slyly subversive look at an inward-looking middle class, who in their own words accompanying the photographs, were seemingly oblivious to the racial and cultural strife roiling America's cities, not to mention the Vietnam War half a world away. With forty years' hindsight, and with many of these same tract homes now replaced by MacMansions, and with Bill Owens himself now brewing premium beer in addition to making digital fashion photographs, we can look back with nostalgia on this brilliant time-piece.

This show can be combined with Bill Owens: Working/Leisure; please inquire.

Number of photographs: 75 
Frame sizes: 14 x16 inches
Linear feet: 220
Rental fee: $5900 for 8 weeks