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High Museum Announces Exhibition of Work by Atlanta Photographer Chip Simone

The High Museum of Art will organize and host an exhibition of 64 color photographs by Atlanta-based photographer Robert “Chip” Simone. Having worked as a classic black-and-white street photographer for most of his career, Simone embraced digital technology and color output in the year 2000, moving his experimentations with the medium into fresh and invigorating territory. This exhibition will showcase the results of Simone’s recent explorations, presenting a tightly focused retrospective of the past decade of his work. “The Resonant Image: Photographs by Chip Simone” will be on view at the High from June 18 through November 6, 2011.

The prints to be featured in this exhibition reflect Simone’s long-term quest to “invest the print with the emotional resonance that I felt when I first saw the picture.” Made largely in and around Atlanta and the photographer’s home state of Massachusetts, the photographs showcase Simone’s sensitive response to the visual rhythms of his environment. Simone describes his work as spontaneous and improvisational: “Like jazz music, the photographs resonate with the eccentric impulses and private curiosities that led me to them. These are the most intimate images I’ve ever shown, not for what they depict but for what they reveal.”

“Simone’s dedication to reinventing his visual approach to the world in recent years has resulted in a remarkably poetic and sophisticated body of work. This exhibition is a fitting way to celebrate his longstanding, thoughtful and coherent contributions to the craft of photography,” said Brett Abbott, the High’s curator of photography. “The show is also very important for the High, as it allows us to showcase the work of a significant Atlanta-based artist—a resident in our own community— who is contributing to the city’s growing cultural scene.”

Chip Simone
An Atlanta-based street photographer, Simone has dedicated himself to photography for the last four decades. Simone studied under Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1964 to 1967 alongside peers such as Emmet Gowin and John McWilliams. Simone is the recipient a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1978) and his photographs are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Sir Elton John Photography Collection; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and other major museums.

Exhibition Organization and Support
“The Resonant Image: Photographs by Chip Simone” is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. The High, in association with Nazraeli Press, will be releasing a related publication of Simone’s work entitled CHROMA to complement the exhibition.

Photography at the High
Begun in 1974, the High’s photography collection contains nearly 4,500 19th- and 20th-century images, with notable examples of every photographic genre and process as well as many of the masters in the field, including George N. Barnard, Julia Margaret Cameron, Walker Evans, Richard Misrach, Emmet Gowin and Sally Mann. It also includes the nation’s most comprehensive collection of civil rights-era photography, with works by Ernest C. Withers, Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson, Bob Adelman and others. Large-scale prints by prominent contemporary artists such as Thomas Struth, Taryn Simon, Vik Muniz and Jeff Wall are also featured.

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