Overview & Events

Gallery Talk: Observer
Saturday, October 17, 2:00–3:00 p.m.

In 2000, after a forty-year career as a lawyer, Norman Carr turned his attention to photography. He was eager to use the “eye” he had employed as a collector of work by important twentieth-century American photographers to make images that were distinctly his own and could, perhaps, rival the best of those by noted professionals.

He was drawn to the wealth of visual possibilities street life offered. He photographed frequently in Washington, DC, but when he travelled nationally and internationally, he sought to make pictures that captured what was both unique and universal about a site. Early on he discovered the spatial and emotional complexity afforded by reflections. The complex, layered space they create hint at Cubism and the dream-like world of Surrealism. This pictorial device became a key element of Carr’s signature style.  

The black-and-white photographs in this exhibition were made between 2000 and 2004 and reflect what Carr described simply as "the way I see things." Beginning in 2005, he challenged himself to work primarily in color, using light and hue with the same expressive power a painter brings to canvas. Together, these photographs reveal the emergence of a distinctive artistic vision, one that transforms ordinary moments into richly layered studies of place, perception, and everyday life.