Gus Powell

Gus Powell was born in New York City in 1974 and attended Oberlin College where he majored in comparative religion. In 2003, he was selected to be in PDNs 30 Under 30 issue and also published his first monograph, The Company of Strangers (J&L Books). His work has been exhibited internationally, including a solo show at The Museum of The City of New York and group exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and FOAM, NL.

His photographs have been published in Aperture, Harpers, Vogue, M le mag – Le Monde, Wired, Fortune, W, and he has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He is a member of the street photographers’ collective UP and is faculty in the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts, NY.

His work is included in the books Bystander: A World History of Street Photography and Street Photography Now. Powell’s second monograph, titled The Lonely Ones (J&L Books, 2015) was celebrated as one of the best photography books of the year, and was reprinted in Italy as a trilingual edition in 2017 by Lazy Dog / Mutty. His third monograph, Family Car Trouble (TBW Books, 2019), plays with the form of the novel, both as material object and as narrative vehicle for expressing interior life. The work records and reckons with the arrival of children, the departure of a father, and the maintenance of a difficult 1993 Volvo 940 Turbo station wagon. It was celebrated as one of the best photo books of the year and is considered a new classic of the Automotive Bereavement Parenting genre. 

Powell resides in Brooklyn, NY, and is currently at work on a series titled Mise en Scene.