Second Street East & South Main Street, Kalispell, Montana

Photography and Media

August 22, 1974

Stephen Shore
American, born 1947

After achieving success at an early age—he sold three prints to the Museum of Modern Art at 14, photographed at Andy Warhol’s Factory at 17, and held a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 24—Stephen Shore took a new direction in his work with a series of cross-country road trips beginning in 1972. He explained, “I started photographing everyone I met, every meal, every toilet, every bed I slept in, the streets I walked on, the towns I visited.” With a deadpan appraisal of the built environment of modern America, Shore built a reputation as part of a generation of photographers who used color in an anticommercial fashion. The street corner in this image is unremarkable, yet Shore’s attention to the landscape—vernacular signs and architecture, patterns in the street and pavement—and muted color palette render the mundane significant.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Stephen Shore
Title: Second Street East & South Main Street, Kalispell, Montana
Place: United States (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1974
Medium: Chromogenic print
Dimensions: 30.5 × 38.7 cm (12 1/16 × 15 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Stephen Shore
Reference Number: 1985.359

Art Institute of Chicago, “When Color Was New,” February 24-April 29, 2007. (Katherine Bussard)
Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 10 Permanent Collection Rotation, May 10-September 28, 2014.

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