Nicholas Nixon
Hospice Patients
March 4–29, 2015
Best known for his black-and-white large-format photography, including his ongoing portrait series featuring his wife Bebe and her three sisters, Nicholas Nixon has turned his attention in recent years to color imagery. In Nicholas Nixon: Hospice Patients, the artist empathetically captures in intimate detail the precious last moments of terminally ill patients, often alongside their close friends and family. Nixon’s signature style of photographing at close range facilitates not only a physical connection for viewers, but also a visceral and emotional one, enabling us to connect with these individuals who would otherwise be strangers.
Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947) has photographed porch life in the rural south, schools in and around Boston, cityscapes, sick and dying people, the intimacy of couples, and the ongoing annual portrait of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters (which he began in 1975). Nixon has been awarded three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Guggenheim Fellowships. In 2005, Nixon’s work was featured in a solo exhibition appearing at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Cincinnati Art Museum, and in 2013, Steidl published his monograph, Close Far. In 2014, Nixon’s 40th portrait in The Brown Sisters debuted in The New York Times accompanied by an article by Susan Minot, and subsequently was shown with the entire series at Paris Photo and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA). Nixon’s work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among many others.
Nicholas Nixon: Hospice Patients appears courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco