CHRIS McCAW

Chris McCaw (b. 1971; Daly City, CA) is a photographer who focuses on distilling the intrinsic relationship between photography and the sun. Experimenting with photography from childhood, the artist is fascinated with the medium in all its iterations, working from an early age to document California’s skateboarding, zine, and punk scenes in the mid-1980s. While pursuing his BFA, he fell in love with the simplicity of large-format cameras, and experimented vigorously with various printing processes and began building his own cameras in 1995.

Navigating between literalism and abstraction, McCaw has worked to both accurately capture our place in a cosmic landscape in motion, as well as using the graphic lines and dots burned by the sun in abstracted compositions. The artist equips his large-format cameras with powerful lenses typically used for military surveillance. Instead of film, McCaw inserts expired fiber-based gelatin silver photo paper directly into the camera. Pointing the lens at the sun, McCaw makes recordings ranging from thirty seconds to as long as 84 hours. The sun, intensified by the lens, scorches its path across the paper while creating a solarized image of the landscape or seascape below – a “direct positive” image made in-camera, without an intervening negative. Seeking to extend the duration of his photographs, McCaw has made four trips to the Arctic Circle in summer when the sun never sets to document the “midnight sun.” Throughout his work, these burned lines and holes are tangible traces of the act of making each photograph: marking time, recording location, mapping weather conditions and channeling light.

McCaw’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Portland Art Museum, OR; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Somerset House, London, UK. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Chrysler Art Museum, Norfolk, VA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, among many others. McCaw is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Andy Warhol Foundation's New Works Grant and Alternative Exposure Grant, as well as the Emerging Icon in Photography award from the George Eastman House. The artist lives and works in Pacifica, California.

EXHIBITIONS AT THE GALLERY

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024
Chris McCaw, Marking Time, Bigaignon, Paris

2023
Chris McCaw: Early Works, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022
Into the Sun, Datz Museum of Art, Gwangju, South Korea

2016
Direct Positive, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY

2012
Marking Time, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY

2011
Ride into the Sun, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2010 Sunburned, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2008
New work from the Sunburn Project, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, NY
Sunburn, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA
Sunburns, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2003
Powerhouse, Family Farm and Travelogue, Image/Imatge Gallery, Orthez, FR

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024
The Awe of the Arctic, New York Public Library, New York, NY

2023
Elemental, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Touch the Sun, Marshall Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Ansel Adams in Our Time, de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA

2022
Time’s Relentless Melt, Princeton University: Art on Hulfish, Princeton, NJ

2021
Solar Flare, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand [curated by Ben Cauchi]
Ansel Adams in Our Time, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Blaze Across the Firmament, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2020
Ansel Adams in Our Time, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
ONE: An Exhibition of Unique Objects, Transformer Station, Cleveland, OH
Process and Invention: West Coast Photographers Expanding the Medium, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Image + Object, New Museum Los Gatos, Los Gatos, CA
Photography to the Test of Abstraction, FRAC Normandie Rouen, Rouen, France; Micro-Onde,
Centre d’art contemporain de l’Onde, Vélizy-Villacoublay, France; and Centre Photographie D’Île De-France, Pontault-Combault, France

2019
Fundamentals, Black Box Projects, London, UK
Painting with Light, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY
The Sheltering Sky, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA

2018
Ansel Adams in Our Time, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
10,000 Fahrenheit, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, CA
New Territory: Landscape Photography Today, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

2017
Dark Room, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY
Sea Views, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Phenomenon, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
The Basilisk, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Low Fidelity: The Action of Light, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA

2016
A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age, George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
Retro-spective: Analog Photography in a Digital World, MOCA, Jacksonville, FL
The Sun Placed in the Abyss, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Berkeley Eye: Perspectives on the Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film
Archive, Berkeley, CA
I Am the Sun, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Touch the Sky: Art and Astronomy, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
This is a Photograph, Penland Gallery, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Defying Darkness: Photography at Night, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA Look Inside: New Photography Acquisitions, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX

2015
Photography and the Scientific Spirit, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2014 Modern Alchemy: Experiments in Photography, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
After Ansel Adams, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

2013
Reality Check, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA
With a Trace: Photographs of Absence, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
Currents: Photographs from the Collection of Allen Thomas Jr., Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC
Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House Trust, London, UK
Light Sensitive: Photographic Works from North Carolina Collections, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC 2011 Sun Works, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Bending the Light, Oakland International Airport Exhibition, Oakland, CA
Heavens: Photographs of the Sky and Cosmos, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Seeing is Knowing: the Universe, Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Out of the Dark Room, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Pure Photography, Post Production and Mixed Media, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ California Continued: New Approaches in West Coast Photography, Smith Anderson North, San Anselmo, CA
EcoArchive: Meditations on Time and Nature, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Open Season, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC

2010
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Redisplay of the Photography Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Past Forward: Marking Time in Recent Photography, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Exposed: Today’s Photography/Yesterday’s Technology, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, CA
Elemental, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Edges of Light: Explorations of the Photographic Process, ArtsBenicia, Benicia, CA
State of Mind: A California Invitational, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area Part 2: The Future Lasts Forever, SFCamerawork, San Francisco, CA
Burning Desire, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, New York, NY

2009
Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, Aperture Gallery, NY 10 x 10 x 10: An Invitational Exhibition, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Transmutations, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, NY
Landmark, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Keeping Time, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA

2008
Landscape/Other, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, CA
People & Places, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC Each Sun, Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Grace, PEER Gallery, New York, NY
Mineral, Hous Projects, New York, NY
Sunburn, The Center for Contemporary Arts, Abilene, TX

2007
Time Tracers, Center of Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY
Sunburn, Houston Center of Photography, Houston, TX
Strange Weather, David Cunningham Projects, San Francisco, CA
Sunburn, Burien Art Gallery, Burien, WA
Sunburns and Platinum Work, Moab Art Works, Moab, UT
Lucky Day, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2006
Sunburned & Waterlogged, Gallery of Urban Art, Oakland, CA
Eyewitness II, UC Berkeley School of Journalism, Berkeley, CA
Platinum Places, Watermark Fine Art, Houston, TX
Outmoded, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Lost Out West, 19th & Union Gallery, Oakland, CA
Contemporary Landscape, Baxter/Chang/Patri Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
The Family Farm, San Francisco International Airport Museum, CA

2005
Romancing the Shadows, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
Contemporary American Photography, Internationale Fototage
Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, Germany
Vital Signs, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
The Family Farm, Watermark Fine Art, Houston, TX
Travelogue, Fusion Artspace, San Francisco, CA

2004
Live Free or Die, Freewheel, San Francisco, CA

2003
Chris McCaw-American Photographs, Image/Imatge Gallery, Orthez, France

2002
Identity, San Francisco Main Library, San Francisco, CA

2001
SF Camerawork, Fine Print Collection, San Francisco, CA
Vivid, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

2000
Timeless Light, Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, OR

1999
Portraits, Bloom Studio, Oakland, CA

1998
Road Trip Documents, Spindler, San Francisco, CA

1995
Graduate show, Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA

1993
Friends of the South Bay Punk Scene, The Other Gallery, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

1991
Infrared Views, The Other Gallery, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

AWARDS

2014 Emerging Icon in Photography, George Eastman House, International Museum of Film and Photography, Rochester, NY
2008 New Works Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation / SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA
2007 Alternative Exposure Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation / Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
1996 Honorable Mention, Photo Metro Photography Contest Issue
1992 John Long Memorial Photography Scholarship, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Crocker Art Museum Sacramento, CA
Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY