and a general contentment with the status quo. One
individual describes ‘‘The best way to have fun...is to
come out on a Saturday morning and pull weeds in a
median strip,’’ implying that fun is a priority and that
pleasure is derived by maintaining the local commu-
nity. A picture of a young girl in a bedroom strewn
with clothing features the caption, ‘‘I wanted Chris-
tina to learn some responsibility for cleaning her
room, but it didn’t work.’’ An Asian family pictured
around their dinner table is paired with the caption,
‘‘Because we live in the suburbs, we don’t eat too
much Chinese food. It’s not available in the super-
markets so on Saturdays we eat hot dogs.’’ Other
comments indicative of the suburban mind frame
include, ‘‘we’re not doing too badly,’’ and a couple
who comments on the joy of being able to sit in front
of their home and ‘‘watch the traffic go by.’’
Owens has noted that a quote he particularly ad-
mires, by an unnamed individual states, ‘‘The main
thing in life is to live it your way.’’ Indeed, Owens’s
photographs document the ways people lived their
lives and spent their time and money during the late
twentieth century. By documenting people, places,
and their possessions, he shows the relationship bet-
ween a way of life and income, represented by the
diverse ways of spending (i.e., boats, cars, motor
homes, parties). Owens’s project also paralleled the
growth of feminism in America, and his photographs
document women influenced by ‘‘women’s libera-
tion.’’ Yet in the final analysis, the images that make
upSuburbiawere created out of Owens’s sense of
responsibility to the community he documented.
Owensevenincludedhisownfamilyasoneofthe
closing shots of the book. His sense of responsibility
to his family prompted the decision to leave photo-
graphy in the early 1980s when he founded a brewery.
Owens also publishedOur Kind of Peoplein 1974,
which featured photographs of fraternal and social
organizations such as the Elks, Cub Scouts, and
church groups, andWorking: I Do it for the Money,
1977, about occupations, completed his examination
of suburban life.
RachelWardSee also: Davidson, Bruce; Documentary Photo-
graphy; Evans, Walker; Family Photography; Frank,
Robert; Lyon, Danny; Winogrand, Garry
Biography
Bill Owens was born in San Jose, California, September 25,
- He received a B.A. in Industrial Arts from California
State University, Chico, California in 1963. Following
college, Owens traveled extensively through Central Amer-
ica, Europe, and the Middle East. He served in the Peace
Corps from 1964–1966 in Jamaica, West Indies. He entered
San Francisco State College in 1966 to study photography.
Worked as a photographer for theLivermore Independent,
California from 1968–1978. In 1971, Owens obtained a
$2000 grant from Alfred Heller, publisher ofCry Califor-
niamagazine to begin work on photographs of suburban
life. A Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and two NEA
grants followed. From 1972 to 1979, he published three
collections of his photographs in the form of books. From
1978 to 1982, he worked as a freelance photographer. In
1982, Owens founded Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward,
California, where he presently resides and publishes two
magazines:American BrewerandBeer. His photographs
are included in the collections of Museum of Modern Art,
New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los
Angeles County Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art,
Stockholm, and Harvard University, among many other
private and public collections.Individual Exhibitions
1994 Photographs from Suburbia, Our Kind of People and
Working; American Fine Arts, New York, New York
1995 Bill Owens, Photographs of Brisbane,California; City
of Brisbane, California (City Offices)
Bill Owens Suburban Selections (1970–1971);Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
1996 Suburbia Vintage Prints; Robert Koch Gallery, San
Francisco, California
Bill Owens; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, California
1999 Bill Owens; Stephen Bugler Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Bill Owens’ Suburbia; Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie,
Paris, France
Bill Owens; Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, Washington
2000 Suburbia;Photographs by Bill Owens; UCR/California
Museum or Photography, Riverside, California
The Suburban Seventies: Photographs by Bill Owens;
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California
Images From Suburbia; Art and Photographs, Lon-
don, England
Bill Owens; Galleria Civica, Modena, ItalyGroup Exhibitions
1965 Institute of Jamaica; Jamaica, West Indies
1972 Critic’s Choice;FocusGalley,SanFrancisco,California
1973 Oakland Art Museum; Oakland, California
New Bay Area Photographers; de Young Museum,
San Francisco, California
Guggenheim Fellow Photographs; Mary Porter Sesnon
Gallery, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa
Cruz, California
1976 Dalhhousie University Art Gallery; Halifax, Nova
Scotia,
You Ought to Be in Pictures: American Family Por-
traits, 1730–1976; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Phila-
delphia, Pennsylvania
Signs of Life: Symbols in the American City; Renwick
Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1977 America Photographic Statements: 12 Photographers;
Neikrug Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
La Photo Galeria; Madrid, Spain
1978 Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since
1960 ;MuseumofModernArt,NewYork,NewYork,
and travelingOWENS, BILL