The first complete retrospective of photographer Bay Area New Topographics
 

 
 In 1975, curator William Jenkins noted that a number of American photographers shared a similar documentary aesthetic—direct, mostly black-and-white impressions of cityscapes, executed with an ironic, sometimes critical eye—and dubbed this aesthetic the New Topographies. Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel (1942–2018) was among the group, along with Robert Adams, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, and Stephen Shore. Known for his black-and-white images of the American West, Wessel’s work closely aligns with Jensen’s description. Exploring the territory where nature and culture meet, Wessel spontaneously captured scenes of everyday life, sometimes incorporating touches of deadpan humor into the process. However, unlike some of the other photographers of the new topography, he still paid considerable attention to form and light, and was unwilling to completely succumb to stylized interventions. As he traveled across the West, Wessel developed a repertoire of motifs, including bushes, parking lots, and bathers, transmuting banal subjects into a personal poetry.
 
 Henry Wessel: Documentary Style and Beyond presents a survey of the photographer's work, compiling a selection of his most representative images. The volume also includes photographs by other major figures in American documentary photography, such as Ed Ruscha, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus.