Emmet Gowin’s biography profoundly resonates through his work. Since his marriage to Edith Morris in 1964, his in-laws have featured in a great number of photographs. The artist admired their humility and generosity, and over the course of a decade he portrayed the Morrises as a way of thanking them. Nevertheless, the true protagonist of his photographs was his wife, who became the guiding force of his work as a whole.

Gowin portrayed Edith throughout his entire life: at the beginning of their relationship, during their first years as a married couple, when she was pregnant, in nature, with her family, and with their children. This photograph from 1973, in which Edith is nude, corresponds to a moment when the photographer had already earned an important reputation as an artist by virtue of several exhibitions and a portfolio published in Aperture magazine. The ease with which he treats nudes is reminiscent of the way in which his mentor, Harry Callahan, portrayed his wife Eleanor. Carefully constructed, the image allows viewers to take part in one of the couple’s intimate moments. According to Gowin himself, the photographs are a way to intensely retain an instant of communication between one human being and another.