Exteneded through May 6

Stephen Daiter Gallery is pleased to present the photographs of Joseph Sterling. This exhibition of 40 images reveals the artist's range and embraces both the famed series, The Age of Adolescence - a documentary masterwork exposing the life and milieu of the pre-Vietnam War era American teenager - and a variety of other imagery created before and after that body of work.

The Age of Adolescence explores the sometimes tentative, sometimes explosive atmosphere that surrounded the rites of passage from childhood to adulthood during the years 1959-1964. The recently published monograph of the same title (Greybull Press, 2005) includes a compelling essay by David Travis, Curator of Photography at The Art Institute of Chicago. The other photographs on display range from the early 1950s to the mid-70s and vary in subject matter from near abstraction to industrial documentary to street reportage - many are being exhibited for the first time.

Sterling received an M.S. at the Institute of Design in 1962, having learned from the renowned teaching team of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. He also took classes with Frederick Sommer, who taught at the ID for a year. Sterling's immediate group included artists Joseph Jachna, Charles Swedlund, Ken Josephson and Ray Metzker; collectively, they were known as the "ID 5."

After graduating, Sterling pursued a career as a magazine and corporate/industrial photographer working primarily in the Chicago
area. He established the photography department at Columbia College of Chicago and has taught and lectured at the Institute of Design and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Among other publications, Sterling's work has appeared in Aperture
Magazine and Time Life's "This Fabulous Century." His photographs can also be found in the collections of MoMA, George Eastman House, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.