The next Artist You Need To Know is Larry Towell.
Larry Towell is a Canadian photographer, poet and historian : he was the first Canadian member of the respected Magnum Photo Agency. Towell is well known for his photographs taken around his home in Ontario, chronicling the lives of respective communities with a kind but discerning eye, and also his images from a number of zones of conflict around the world including Ukraine, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and others.
His words : “If there’s one theme that connects all my work, I think it’s that of landlessness; how land makes people into who they are and what happens to them when they lose it and thus lose their identities.”
From the Stephen Bulger Gallery : Towell’s images “[reveal] his emotionally charged and deeply humanist vision as a photographer. His work explores themes of land, landlessness, and control, ranging from a personal account of his family’s life in rural Ontario to the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire of war.”
Towell was born in Chatham-Kent in rural Southwestern Ontario in 1953 to a large family : he attended York University in Toronto from 1972 to 1976 (one of his instructors was the artist Tim Whiten) and this is where his interest in photography first began. After York, Towell did volunteer work in Calcutta, India: in many ways, this was a significant spur to his art and ideas, as the poverty and displacement of many people there began to shape how he would see the world, through his lens.
Upon his return to Canada, his artistic focus in the early 1980s was more so on folk music (he worked as a music teacher at this time) and poetry. During this period, he farmed in rural Lambton County Ontario, living on 75 acre farm with his wife Ann and their four children.
In 1984 Towell began working as a freelance photographer : notable projects at this time documented the Contra war in Nicaragua, the civil war in El Salvador, relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and American Vietnam War veterans who had returned to the country years later to help rebuild Vietnam. Towell’s first magazine photo essay was about the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the ecological devastation from that incident.
After only four years as a freelance photographer, Towell became a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency in 1988 : he was the first Canadian associated with the group.
Towell’s photo essays have been featured in many publications, such as The New York Time, Life and Rolling Stone. His projects have been both focused on global conflicts and issues, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or Mennonite migrant workers in Mexico, but he has produced many evocative and engaging photographs as part of a personal project that is based on his family’s farm in southern Ontario.
The gallery below features a selection of images from Towell’s series about Mennonite communities which are some of his best known work : some of the people Towell has documented are near to where he grew up and lives in Ontario, but also are from other communities, such as Mexico, for example.
“Although a journalist must work in the arena of international events, when I am not travelling, I turn the camera inward.”
Towell has continued to turn his eye and camera to events that are both international and local : for four years (beginning in 2008), over the course of five forays to the region, he documented the Afghan civil war, especially the larger social effects. He also documented the Standing Rock protest in Standing Rock, North Dakota, in 2016. Closer to home, Towell photographed the construction work around Toronto’s Union Station, and in 2015 Canada Post published one of his images – Isaac’s first swim – as a stamp.
He’s best known for his black and white images, but Towell has worked in traditional film and digital modes : he’s also produced several panoramic images, such as his images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the United States.
His words : “Black and white is still the poetic form of photography. Digital is for the moment; black and white is an investment of time and love.”
Towell has published books of poetry and also of oral history and has recorded several audio CDs of his own poetry and music. He has also produced a number of fine photo books over his prolific career. These include Ruins: Afghanistan (2009), The World From My Front Porch (2008), In the Wake of Katrina (2006), The Mennonites (2000), Then Palestine (1999), El Salvador (1997) and The Prison Poems of Ho Chi Minh (1992).
He’s exhibited his work at The Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto, ON), George Eastman House (Rochester, NY), Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (Paris), Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Edinburg, UK), Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa, ON), Noorderlicht Photo Festival (Groningen, Netherlands), Circulo de Bellas Artes (Madrid, Spain) and Le Mois de la Photo – Maison de la Culture Plateau (Montreal, QC).
Towell has been recognized with a number of honours and awards. These include World Press Photo of the Year, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the inaugural Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, the W. Eugene Smith Award and the Prix Nadar. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2020.
More of Larry Towell’s evocative images that straddle empathy and history can be seen here.