Eric Meola

Guest Instructor with Arthur Meyerson and group leaders Seth Resnick and John Paul Caponigro.

Showcasing a portfolio of his colour images in its October 2008 issue, Rangefinder magazine referred to Eric as one of a “handful of color photographers who are true innovators.”

Eric Meola’s graphic use of colour has formed his photographs and his distinguished career for more than four decades. His prints are in several private collections and museums, including the A.S.M.P. archive, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Museum of Modern Art in Munich. He has won numerous awards including the “Advertising Photographer of the Year” award from the American Society of Media Photographers.

In 1972 he photographed Haiti for Time magazine, resulting in one of his most famous images, “Coca Kid,” which was included in Life magazine’s special 1997 issue “100 Magnificent Images.” In 1980 he had his first major exhibit in New York at the “Space” gallery in Carnegie Hall, and his signature red, white and blue image “Promised Land,” was chosen for inclusion in the permanent collection of the George Eastman House. In 1989 he was the only photographer named to Adweek magazine’s national “Creative All-Star Team”; and that same year he received a “Clio” for a series of images he made in Scotland for a breakthrough campaign featuring the outerwear clothing of the Timberland company. “Fire Eater,” his iconic image of the spotlit lips of a woman submerged in a tank of water, and commissioned by Almay cosmetics, was included in Robert Sobieszek’s 1993 book on advertising The Art of Persuasion.

As an undergraduate at Syracuse University, he studied colour printing and colour theory with legendary instructor Tom Richards at the Newhouse School of Journalism before graduating in 1968 with a B.A. in English Literature and then moving to NYC in 1969 to work with Pete Turner as his studio manager. A Canon “Explorer of Light,” he has lectured extensively, including at Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Brooks (Santa Barbara), the Art Center at Pasadena, Parsons, the Academy of Art College (San Francisco), the George Eastman House, and venues including PPA., WPPI, and A.S.M.P.

In 2004, Graphis Editions published his first book The Last Places on Earth, a look at disappearing tribes and cultures throughout the world. An exhibition in England of his photographs of Bruce Springsteen, which coincided with the publication of his second book Born to Run: The Unseen Photos (Insight Editions, 2006), was followed in 2008 by INDIA: In Word & Image (Welcome Books, NY), and an exhibit in 2009 at the Art Directors Club of New York. Born to Run Revisited—a large format limited edition of his Springsteen images—was published by Ormond Yard Press (London) in 2011. Streets of Fire, his fifth book, will be published by HarperCollins in October 2012.