Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color traces the experiments in color and black-and-white photography of the young Meyerowitz, a pioneer in the history of
color photography.

An early advocate of color photography, Joel Meyerowitz has impacted and influenced generations of artists. For fifty-eight years, the master photographer has documented the United States’ ever-changing social landscape.

During the late 1960s, Meyerowitz carried two cameras: one loaded with monochrome stock, the other with color. Just how, when, and why American fine art photographers switched from black-and-white image-making, prized within the gallery system, to color photography, once seen as the preserve of tourist photography, has been the cause of much debate.

In Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color, Meyerowitz tells the story of his early days as a photographer when he was told that serious photographers took black-and-white pictures. "But why," he asked, "when the world is in color?" He then bought a color camera and various rolls of film and began to experiment with color techniques: a passion he continues to pursue.

200 black-and-white and color illustrations

Joel Meyerowitz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. In 2017 Meyerowitz was honoured with a place at the Leica Hall of Fame, and was described as a 'magician using colour' and being able to both 'capture and frame the decisive moment'. Robert Shore is the author of several books about contemporary art and photography, including Post-Photography: The Artist with a Camera (2014), Beg, Steal and Borrow: Artists against Originality (2017), Andy Warhol (2020) and Yayoi Kusama (2021). He worked for many years as an arts reviewer and also as editor of Elephant magazine.