American photographer Jim Dow (born 1942) is renowned for depicting the built environment, first gaining attention for panoramic triptychs of baseball stadiums, and for conveying the human ingenuity and spirit that inhabit places. This is the first book devoted to his early black-and-white work, featuring more than sixty photographs made between 1967 and 1977, most previously unpublished. Indebted to his key mentor Walker Evans, they show weathered signs from billboards, restaurants, petrol stations, drive-ins and other small businesses. Still recognisable as icons of commercial American culture, these signs convey ambiguous messages when detached from their settings, hovering between documentation and abstraction. A new essay by Dow offers his perspective on the work's development. Signs reveals how these formative years honed his sensibility and conceptual approach.
 
 
 
Distributed for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.