Hill's portrait of postwar America and Europe, spanning 70 years
This volume compiles over seven decades of work by American photographer John T. Hill (born 1934), showing the remarkable scope and empathy of his vision. From a street scene in So Paulo in 1958 to the interior of a Queens taxi in 1970, from John F. Kennedy at the podium of a 1960 rally to punks in Trafalgar Square, from Walker Evans' home to recent landscapes and still lifes, his work is democratic, curious, all-embracing. Hill celebrates the contradictions and imperfections of his subjects, engages but never sentimentalizes and is careful not to impose a singular interpretation on the viewer. Here is none of the self-congratulation of "Look at what only I can see," but, rather, an open invitation for the viewer of "This is what you are also capable of seeing."