Originally a poet, Rebecca Norris Webb has published two photography books which explore the complicated relationship between people and the natural world: The Glass Between Us and Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba (with Alex Webb), the latter on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, until January 16, 2012, then traveling to the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona, Florida, in 2013, among other venues. Her upcoming third book from Radius Books (May 2012), My Dakota, an elegy for her brother who died unexpectedly, interweaves her poetry and her photographs taken in her home state of South Dakota, a sparsely populated former frontier state in the American West. My Dakota will be exhibited at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, S.D. (June-Oct. 2012), and then travel to galleries and museums nationally and internationally. Her work is in the collections of such museums as the MFA, Boston, the George Eastman House, and numerous private collections, and has been published in Orion, Time, and other publications. Rebecca is currently working on a new collaboration in the U.S. with her husband and creative partner, the Magnum photographer Alex Webb. For the past 12 years, Rebecca and Alex have taught photography and bookmaking workshops together for museums, universities, and other cultural institutions around the world.
See the article about Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb’s exhibition “Violet Isle” at the Museum of Fine Arts in The Boston Globe.
See the interview with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb in The London Telegraph online.
From the The New Yorker:
Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
This married couple shows color photographs from several trips to Cuba that emphasize the easy compatibility of their distinct visual styles. Alex usually takes a broad view of streetscapes complicated by shadows, reflections, and arrested movement; he has a filmmaker’s ability to find the skewed but perfect balance in a scene that threatens to spin out of control. Rebecca tends to focus on details, framing intriguing still-lifes and capturing marvelous shots of birds, including a pigeon that appears to be flying away from a freshly laid egg. Both Webbs use color like the Fauves—in hot, vibrant swatches and pungent accents. The results are the opposite of tourist views: pictures that are generated and animated by their subjects, never imposed on them. Through Jan. 2. (Ricco/Maresca, 529 W. 20th St. 212-627-4819.)
From Orion Magazine, May-June 2010 issue, page 71:
“Collaborative photography books are difficult to pull off –– maybe even more so by a husband-and-wife team, and especially when each is offering pictures (as opposed to one providing the text.) Pick a popular, well-photographed subject like Cuba for even more of a challenge. Violet Isle (Radius Books, 2009), by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, easily overcomes these difficulties. Made from 11 trips to Cuba over 15 years, the book alternates between his and her images almost page by page, mixing Rebecca’s painterly vignettes with Alex’s harder-edged narrative into a single, deep, organically cohesive vision of this iconic island.”
