Bill Jacobson

Bill Jacobson is an American photographer who was born in 1955 in Norwich, Connecticut. He earned a BFA in art and American studies from Brown University in 1977 and an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981.

Much of Jacobson's early work referenced the AIDS epidemic; the blurred portraits evoked a sense of loss that is an equally appropriate response to his later imagery of New York City. Since 1989, he has been making diffused out-of-focus photographs that negate (through the application of a defusing lens) the specificity of photographic vision in favor of an immateriality of light and form. His black and white pictures of isolated subjects suggested actions, moods, even narratives that were ethereal, haunting, and momentary.

The Armand Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the New York Public Library, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) are among the public collections holding works by Bill Jacobson.

References

* Jacobson, Bill, "Bill Jacobson 1989-1997, With a Story by Klaus Kertess", Santa Fe, New Mexico, Twin Palm Publishers, 1998.