Kenneth McGowan

Born in Ogden, Utah in 1940, Kenneth McGowan moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California, where he completed a BA (1963) and an MFA (1966). The 20/20 portfolio, published in 1985 by UCLA, gathered the work of twenty photographers who had completed the graduate photography program within the last twenty years. McGowan was included along with Ellen Brooks, Gillian Brown, Jack Butler, Darryl Curran, Jo Ann Callis, Judy Coleman, Darryl J. Curran, William Doherty, Sidney Doniger, John Divola, Robbert Flick, Jeff Gates, Graham Howe, Paul Knotter, Victor Landweber, Philip Melnick, Patrick Nagatani, Karen O'Hearn, Pat O'Neill, Sheila Pinkel, Scott Rankin, Kennetho Shorr, and Elfie Wilkins-Nacht. In the 1970s, McGowan worked on a series of photographs that engaged with the film industry in Los Angeles, and in pictures such as Movie Trees and Pech and Hitchcock (both 1979) he highlights the elements of artifice that go into making movies. McGowan died in 1986 in New York City.

Text © Museum of Contemporary Photography, 2018