On View
On viewObject number1977/8.110
Suburbia #3
Artist
Bill Owens
(American, 1938-)
Date1972
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionsimage: 12 in. × 9 3/16 in. (30.5 × 23.3 cm)
sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 15/16 in. (35.4 × 27.8 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 15/16 in. (35.4 × 27.8 cm)
mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LineDirector's Fund
Exhibition History"Bill Owens: Photographs," KIA (May, 1978).
"Kalamazoo Collects Photography," KIA (Mar. 1980).
"Master Photographs from the Permanent Collection," KIA (Sept. 7 - Oct. 24, 1993).
"Photo Affinities," KIA Long Gallery (June 2000 - Jan. 2001) (cf 1994/5.16).
"Photo Affinities," Art Center of Battle Creek (Jan. 6 - Mar. 4, 2003).
Label TextAfter World War II, Bill Owens became fascinated by suburban expansion, and by the late 1960s was a photographer at the local newspaper in Livermore, California. As middle-class America became more populated, Owens began capturing the lives and structures built to house this newly mobile class of American citizens. In 1971, the artist published Suburbia, a best-selling photography book, eventually publishing three more books documenting life in San Francisco’s East Bay’s suburbs.
The concept of suburbia recalls a period of heightened economic development and mobility for those with cars and, for some, flight from overcrowded city living. During the rapid expansion of the 1940s and 1950s, the East Bay suburbs were “officially and explicitly segregated.” However, by the 1970s, African American workers began moving into areas like the one pictured here. Owens' Suburbia is, therefore, not only a meditation on white middle and working-class living, but also new economic opportunities becoming available for East Bay-based African Americans.
[Label Text: For the People: America at 250 Exhibition, June 27 - October 4, 2026]
