Mitch Epstein

Mitch Epstein is renowned for his pioneering fine-art colour photography in the 1970s.

Discover the life, most significant photographs, and must-see exhibitions of photographer Mitch Epstein.

Mitch Epstein helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s. 

Epstein has worked as a director, cinematographer, and production designer on several films, including Forest Waves, Dad, Mississippi Masala, and Salaam Bombay!. He lives with his family in New York City.

In 2013, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of Epstein’s series American Power. Directed by Annie B Parsons and Paul Lazar, the American Power performance combined original live music by Erik Friedlander and live storytelling by Epstein, along with video and projected photographs and archival material. Epstein and Friedlander performed the show at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio (2014) and Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2015).

Epstein's seventeen books, most published by Steidl Verlag, include Recreation (2022); Property Rights (2021); In India (2021); Rocks and Clouds (2017); New York Arbor (2013); Berlin (Steidl/The American Academy in Berlin 2011); American Power (2009); Family Business (2003), winner of the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award.

In 2020, Mitch Epstein was inducted into the National Academy of Design. In 2011, he won the Prix Pictet for American Power. Among his other awards are the Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters from the American Academy in Berlin (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003).

His photographs are in numerous major museum collections, including New York's Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Modern in London.

His Indian photographs and films (Salaam Bombay! and India Cabaret) were exhibited at Les Rencontres d'Arles (2022) in the 12th century Abbey of Montmajour, Arles, France. The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas exhibited his series Property Rights (2020-21), which was also shown at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York (2019) and Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne (2019). A survey of Epstein’s work was shown at the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2020).

From 17 October 2024 to 2 March 2025, Gallerie d’Italia – Turin presented Mitch Epstein. American Nature, the largest retrospective ever dedicated to acclaimed American photographer Mitch Epstein.