Bill Coleman 1925 - 2014
Bill Coleman’s body of work, spanning more than sixty years, has been exhibited at the National Press Gallery in Washington D.C., The Pennsylvania State House, Wolfson College at Oxford University, UK, the B.A.S.F Gallery in Frankfurt Germany and others. Coleman's work has been celebrated and recognized as the foremost photographic documentation of an Old Order Amish community. In addition, Bill's most recent work of the Amish has been published in three books over the past twenty five years; "Amish Odyssey" in 1987, The Gift to be Simple in 2001 and The Gift of Friendship" in 2008 and reprinted in 2014.
Bill with Henry and DavidBorn in Connecticut and raised in New York City, Coleman served as an infantryman in WWII and was an American prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. After the war, Coleman majored in English and graduated from Penn State University and went on to Rochester Institute of Technology for graduate work. In 1950, Coleman opened his first photographic portrait studio in State College PA. For more than three decades Coleman crafted and shot his signature portrait sessions with thousands of residents, families and business leaders.
Frequent travels abroad over those decades served Coleman's keen interest in capturing images of people living their routine lives in their own habitats. Portuguese fisherman, old-school Italian gentlemen cavorting in their piazzas and redundant Welsh slate miners milling about in their villages also served as Bill's subjects.
The Amish way of life never ceased to pique his interest. Coleman has left, as his legacy, a stunning decades long photographic commentary capturing generation after generation thriving only with the tools and philosophy reminiscent of bucolic eighteenth century America. His love of the Amish and their relationships with each other and the land nourished Coleman’s hope that humanity still thrives unencumbered with the distractions of modern day life.
 |
Gift Certificates Available, to order Click Here |
| Enter your email address to be notified of special offers |
We try to keep our emails to a minimum and will never share your information. with third-parties. |