Gerry Johansson: Maine

From Augusta to Bristol, Brunswick and beyond, Johansson’s chronicle of Maine combines humor and emotion with a sense of place

In 2023, Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson (born 1945) roamed the state of Maine with a Rolleiflex, curious to make new pictures in a region of America he first encountered in the work of Paul Strand five decades ago—he found Strand’s views of New England “boring” at the time—and also wondering, “Why is American photography so focused on the west?” Johansson’s Maine echoes the formal restraint of his earlier books, notably American Winter, Spanish Summer, Meloni Meloni and Pontiac, sequencing nearly 200 black-and-white duotones alphabetically by their oddly poetic Northeastern town names (Bath, Friendship, Purgatory, etc). Somehow, none of the Maine pictures draws more attention than any other, and the flawless and playful compositions never seem to repeat. As in all of Johansson’s work, endlessly inventive arrangements of architecture and landscape orient the viewer in a specific geographic and cultural place while generously sharing his way of seeing, walking and thinking with a camera.