Still Moving: Photographs by Steve McCurry
June 14 - September 18, 2016
Internationally acclaimed photographer Steve McCurry is often on the move. Best known for a haunting image of a refugee “Afghan Girl” that graced the cover of National Geographic in 1985, McCurry continues to cross the globe in search of those “unguarded moments” in which the resilient human spirit is most evident, even in the face of war, forced migrations, and natural disasters.
Born in 1950 in a suburb of Philadelphia, McCurry (’74, A&A) studied film at Penn State before going to work for a local newspaper. After several years of freelance work, McCurry made the first of what would become many trips to India, traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, camera in hand. Within several months he had crossed the border into Pakistan, where he met a group of Afghan refugees who helped smuggle him into their rebel-controlled country, just as it was being closed to Western journalists. Embedded with the Mujahedeen, McCurry brought the world the first images of the conflict in Afghanistan, putting a human face to the issue on every masthead.
Since then, McCurry has gone on to create stunning images over six continents and countless countries. His work spans international conflicts and remote civil wars, vanishing ways of life and enduring ancient traditions, intimate portraits and panoramic vistas.
Co-curated by Palmer curator Joyce Robinson and Steven Rubin, associate professor of photography, Still Moving explored the breadth of McCurry’s remarkable oeuvre, including less familiar and recent bodies of work, and looked closely at the visual strategies that make the photographs of this peripatetic wanderer so captivating and moving.
Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art.