A mandatory photography class opened the door for Emmet Gowin to capture the world with ‘visual wonderment’

By Kim Catley

Emmet Gowin will never forget walking the halls of Richmond Professional Institute, the predecessor to Virginia Commonwealth University, as an incoming freshman and hearing from a classmate that a tragedy was about to take place: all commercial art students were now required to take a course in photography.

While his peers saw the addition as a waste of time, Gowin couldn't help but think about an Ansel Adams photograph he had seen just a few years earlier.

"I realized that a photograph could be transcendent, miraculous, spiritually alive," he said. "In an age in which illustration was privileged, photography was thought of as being strictly mechanical, and not truly expressive or personal.

"My experience told me this was not true. That moment gave me great confidence."

After graduating from RPI in 1965, Gowin went on to earn an M.F.A. in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design before embarking on a six-decade career. His photographs contemplate humanity's relationship to the natural world with visual wonderment.

Gowin's early work centered on portraits of his wife, Edith Morris, and their family. Later, he captured aerial vistas of nuclear test sites and scientific surveys of tropical ecosystems. Most recently, his book "Baldwin Street: Photographs 1966-1994," published by Princeton University Press in May 2026, presents an intimate view of family life.

Gowin's work is held in public collections worldwide, including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), The Morgan Library & Museum (New York), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, among others. Gowin is planning a solo exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2028.

Not only an artist, Gowin served on the faculty of Princeton University's Visual Arts Program from 1973 to 2009. He received the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities at Princeton.

Gowin has received many prestigious awards and national honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, in 1974; two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, in 1977 and 1979; and and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 1994. This year, he was one of three artists with ties to the VCU School of the Arts elected into the National Academy of Design. (Read about fellow inductees Kendall Buster and Stephen Vitiello.)

Gowin can also add VCU Alumni Star to his list of accolades. Held every two years, the Alumni Stars Award honors outstanding Rams who are making a lasting difference in their professions and in their communities. Gowin was recognized alongside 14 other honorees at a private celebration on Oct. 9 at the Science Museum of Virginia.

When reflecting on his esteemed career, Gowin said much of it began at RPI, where he encountered several of the best teachers he's ever known. Most notably, he cites Richard Carlyon's first-year course, An Introduction to Modern Art. Even at the early hour of 8 a.m., Gowin recalled, Carlyon was enthusiastic, his intellectual range seemingly unlimited.

"In just that one lecture, I had the feeling of recognition, that I could not have come to a better place, that I could not be studying with a better teacher," Gowin said.

"I carried it with me through my first years of teaching, and I still carry it with me today. I hold those early teachers in reverence and in highest affection. It's what an education can and should be."

This article was originally published on the School of the Arts website.