Easy Days
Sage Sohier
Nazraeli Press
English
Hardcover
76 pages
290 x 330 mm
2025
ISBN 9781590056196
“These pictures describe a long-ago time, and yet in looking at them I become once again the young photographer who took them on a hot summer day, sweat and dust pungent on the breeze; in the distance, I can hear the laughter of children who are now middle-aged.”
‘Easy Days’ is the third title in Sage Sohier’s trilogy which also includes ‘Americans Seen’ and ‘Passing Time’. Made between 1978 and 1986, the 56 photographs presented in Easy Days capture the prosaic moments of ordinary people, always with respect and often with humour.
Sohier finds her subjects in the open spaces of parking lots, front yards and public streets, and in the quieter confines of modest homes, back yards and porches. She depicts “the boredom of hot summer days” with a precise attention to the surroundings, with cold drinks, propane grills, sprinklers and pets each providing small comforts and revealing the quiet tempo of the days. Sohier’s observation that “images…gain a historical perspective over time that adds to their interest” is proven true in this collection of black and white images.
Includes an interview with Mark Steinmetz.
(Source: https://www.nazraeli.com/complete-catalogue/sage-sohier-easy-days)
About the Artist
Sage Sohier has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the No Strings Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. She has published nine monographs, most recently a trilogy of her photographs from the 1980s published by Nazraeli Press: “Easy Days” (2025), “Passing Time” (2023), and “Americans Seen” (2024, 2017). “Peaceable Kingdom,” with an essay by Sy Montgomery, was published in 2021 by Kehrer Verlag. “Animals,” Sohier’s black and white pictures from the 80s and 90s of people and their companion animals, was published by Stanley/Barker in 2019. “Witness to Beauty,” her series about her ex-fashion-model mother, was published in 2016 by Kehrer Verlag. “At Home With Themselves: Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America,” was published in October 2014 by Spotted Books. “About Face,” portraits of people with facial paralysis, was published in 2012 by Columbia College Chicago Press. And “Perfectible Worlds” was published by Photolucida in 2007.
She has had solo shows at The Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA, Foley Gallery in New York, Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, Joseph Bellows Gallery in San Diego, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR. Her work has also been included in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the International Center of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Fotografiska, and many other venues.
https://sagesohier.com/
(Source: https://sagesohier.com/about)
About the Publisher
Founded in 1990, Nazraeli Press has published over 600 titles on the fine and applied arts. The press is known for its unorthodox use of common materials – such as papers, wood, plastic, metals – and for introducing elements of handwork into otherwise mass-produced objects. The press’s books have themselves been the subject of exhibitions and books about books. Formats range from postcard-sized artist’s books to oversized monographs. In addition to traditionally-bound books, the press has published work in scroll format; loose cards in plexiglass boxes; portfolios of original photographs; and, since 2001, a subscription-based series of 16-page artist’s books, called “One Picture Books”, which was relaunched in an upscaled and upgraded format in 2018. Limited to 500 numbered copies, each “One Picture Book” contains a signed, original photograph by the featured artist.
https://www.nazraeli.com/
(Source: https://www.nazraeli.com/about)
