
Frosted Window #2, Ipswich, Massachusetts
<p>Paul Caponigro began photographing in his native New England, cultivating an approach to natural imagery that combined the zone system of Ansel Adams and the Zen-like approach of Minor White. His goal, he said in 1963, was “to work, by way of the photographic image, toward an understanding of that relation which exists between one’s inner activity and one’s external environment.” Returning to Massachusetts from the West Coast, he lived in a farm-house in the woods of Ipswich, where he made this photograph of frost etched on a windowpane. Hugh Edwards admired Caponigro’s exquisite prints and acquired 18 for the collection in 1969.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1962
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image/paper: 26.5 × 33 cm (10 7/16 × 13 in.); Mount: 44.5 × 54.9 cm (17 9/16 × 21 5/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Paul Caponigro
Artist

Photography
Paul Caponigro was an American photographer renowned for large-format black-and-white landscape and nature photography. Working primarily with 8x10 inch view cameras, he created meticulously composed images that emphasize tonal subtlety, geometric form, and the metaphysical qualities of natural light. His practice, developed across seven decades, treated landscape photography as a meditative and spiritual pursuit rather than documentary record. Caponigro's work influenced a generation of fine art photographers and demonstrated the expressive potential of the photographic print as a handmade object.
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More by Paul Caponigro
Landscape, Kalamazoo, Michigan
1970 · Gelatin silver print, from "Portfolio II" (1973)
Monument Valley, New Mexico
1970 · Gelatin silver print, from "Portfolio II" (1973)
Petrified Forest, Arizona Landscape
1970 · Gelatin silver print, from "Portfolio II" (1973)
Redding Woods, Connecticut
1969 · Gelatin silver print, from "Portfolio II" (1973)
Redding Woods, Connecticut
1968 · Gelatin silver print
Redding Woods #20
1968 · Gelatin silver print
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Paul Caponigro
- Year
- 1962
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image/paper: 26.5 × 33 cm (10 7/16 × 13 in.); Mount: 44.5 × 54.9 cm (17 9/16 × 21 5/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1962-111997
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





