Quote: "If there's one theme that connects all my work, I think it's that of land-lessness; how land makes people into who they are and what happens to them when they lose it and thus lose their identities."

Larry Towell joined Magnum Photos in 1988 and became a full Member in 1993.

Canadian, b. 1953

Larry Towell's business card reads 'Human Being'. Experience as a poet and a folk musician has done much to shape his personal style. The son of a car repairman, Towell grew up in a large family in rural Ontario. During studies in visual arts at Toronto's York University, he was given a camera and taught how to process black and white film.

A stint of volunteer work in Calcutta in 1976 provoked Towell to photograph and write. Back in Canada, he taught folk music to support himself and his family. In 1984 he became a freelance photographer and writer focusing on the dispossessed, exile and peasant rebellion. He completed projects on the Nicaraguan Contra war, on the relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and on American Vietnam War veterans who had returned to Vietnam to rebuild the country. His first published magazine essay, 'Paradise Lost', exposed the ecological consequences of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound. He became a Magnum nominee in 1988, and a full member in 1993.

In 1996 Towell completed a project based on ten years of reportage in El Salvador, followed the next year by a major book on the Palestinians. His fascination with landlessness also led him to the Mennonite migrant workers of Mexico, an eleven-year project completed in 2000. With the help of the inaugural Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, he finished a second highly acclaimed book on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2005. He is currently finishing The World from My Front Porch, a project on his own family in rural Ontario, where he sharecrops a 75-acre farm.
Education

1972/76 Visual Arts, York University, Canada

Awards

2005 Prix Nadar (for No Man's Land)
2003 Henri Cartier-Bresson Award
2002 Roloff Beny Book Award
2001 1st Prize, British Design and Art Direction (D&AD) Award
2000 Society for News Design Award, La Nacion
2000 Photo-eye Award, Citation of Excellence
1999 Hasselblad Foundation Award
1999 Roloff Beny Book Award
1999 Picture Of the Year (Best Use of Photography in Books)
1998 1st Prize, Alfred Eisenstadt Award
1998 ‘Pictoral’ Prize, Pictures of the Year Foundation, University of Missouri
1998 Overseas Press Club, New York, Citation of Excellence
1998 Society of Publication Designers, Magazine of the Year,"The New York Times"
1998 Society of Publication Designers, Merit Award, "The New York Times Magazine"
1997 Golden Light (Best Monograph Award)
1996 Oscar Barnack Award
1996 El Mundo Award
1995 Ernst Haas Foundation Award
1994/95 Gold Medal, Canadian National Awards
1994 Picture of the Year, Canon Photo Essay Award
1994 World Press Photo, 1st Prize in category ‘Daily Life Stories’, 1st Prize in category
‘General News Stories’
1994 Premier Photo of the Year, World Press Photo
1993 1st Prize in category ‘Daily Life Stories’, World Press Photo
1991/93 Gold Medal, Western Canada Magazine Awards
1991 W. Eugene Smith Foundation Award
1991 Silver Medal, Canadian National Awards

Exhibitions

2006 FOAM, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2005 No Man's Land - Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France
2004 Alice Austin Museum, New York City, USA
2003 The Caixa Forum, Barcelona, Spain
2003 Oratorio del Caravita, Rome, Italy
2003 Kunsthalle Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
2002 Canada House (Canadian High Commission) London, UK
2001 National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2001 Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Canada
2000 London Regional Art Gallery, London, UK
1998 Aubenades de la Photographie, Aubenas, France
1997/00 Galeries FNAC, national tour, France
1997 Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Groningen, Netherlands
1997 Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain
1994 Retrospective - Nieuwekerk, the Netherlands
1994 Carnets de Voyage - Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa,
Canada
1991 Le Mois de la Photo - Maison de la Culture Plateau, Montreal, Canada

Books

2006 In The Wake Of Katrina, Chris Boot, UK
2005 No Man's Land, Marval, France; Chris Boot, UK
2000 The Mennonites, Phaidon, UK/France
1999 Then Palestine, Marvel, France
1997 El Salvador, DoubleTake Books/W.W. Norton, USA
1994 House on Ninth Street, Cormorant Books, Canada
1992 The Prison Poems of Ho Chi Minh, Cormorant Books, Canada
1990 Somoza's Last Stand, Williams: Wallace Publishers, Canada
1988 Gifts of War, Coach House Press, Canada
1983 Burning Cadillacs, Black Moss Press, Canada