Sternbach takes tintype photographs, a labor-intensive technique - little has changed since it’s invention in the 1850s. Spontaneous and unpredictable, the streaks and tonal variations in the finished photographs reflect their hand-made character, the corners rubbed where they were held in the camera.
Posing on rocky outcrops, in front of uprooted trees, or on thick mats of woody flotsam, Sternbach’s surfers inhabit strange landscapes. The best of Sternbach’s photographs convey insistent longing. They are about relationships – the relationship between surfer and board, between human and landscape, between photographer and subject, and between the surfers themselves. Sternbach has discovered a new home – a place without walls, defined only by belonging and the physicality of existence.
Joni Sternbach is an American artist, photographer, and filmmaker. Over the course of a career spanning many decades, her portrait-based work explores a variety of themes, including domesticity and the family, and sexuality and the body. Issues of gender, identity and feminism were the most critical themes in her early work from the 1980s-1990s, where the female figure—including her own— was a central motif.
Sternbach received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and a MA from New York University and International Center of Photography, where she taught for over a decade. She is an advisory board member and founding faculty at Penumbra Foundation in NYC, where she currently teaches.
Sternbach’s work is held in many international and public collections including the LACMA, The High Museum, National Portrait Gallery in London, Joslyn Museum, MOCA Jacksonville, Nelson Atkins Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She is the recipient of several grants including NYFA and CAPS and Santo Foundation.
She is represented in Los Angeles by Von Lintel Gallery, in London by Black Box Projects, in Cornwall by Circle Contemporary, in Paris by Galerie Hug and in East Hampton, New York by Arc Fine Art.
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Joni Sternbach22.03.08 #5 Five Boards, 2022Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach#3 Kalani + Kelly Slater, 2017Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach#8 Ha’a, 2017Archival pigment print (from original tintype)20.3 x 25.4 cmEdition of 15SoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach14.08.26 #1 Tim, 2017Original Tintype
Shot on location with a portable dark box
20 x 26 cm unframed
31 x 38 cm framedView more details -
Joni Sternbach14.08.28 #4 Corinne, 2017Original Tintype
Shot on location with a portable dark box
20 x 26 cm unframed
31 x 38 cm framed1/1SoldView more details -
Joni Sternbach14.08.30 #1 Little Fistral, 2017Original Tintype
Shot on location with a portable dark box
20 x 26 cm unframed
31 x 38 cm framed1/1View more details -
Joni Sternbach14.08.30 #8 Chris+Rebecca on the Gannel, 2017Original Tintype
Shot on location with a portable dark box
20 x 26 cm unframed
31 x 38 cm framed1/1View more details -
Joni Sternbach#1 Thea+Maxwell, Santa Cruz, CA, 2016Archival pigment print35 x 39 cm
40 x 50 cm (framed)Edition of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach15.08.18 #7 Nude Surfers, Montauk, NY, 2015Archival pigment print35 x 39 cm
40 x 50 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach#3 Water Connection, Santa Barbara, California, 2015Archival pigment print35 x 39 cmEdition of 8SoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach#4 Lone Surfer, Montauk, New York, 2015Archival pigment print (from original tintype)50.8 x 61 cmEdition of 8 | SOLD OUTSoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach#6 Maud, Santa Barbara, California, 2015Archival pigment print61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition 5 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach#6 The Future, Santa Barbara, CA, 2015Archival pigment print (from original tintype)50.8 x 61 cmEdition of 8SoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach15.09.13 #4 Big Guns Alone, 2015Archival pigment print76.2 x 101.6 cm (print size)
90 x 110 cm (framed)
Edition 1 of 5View more details -
Joni Sternbach15.11.07 #2 The Present, 2015Archival pigment print (from original tintype)61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition 5 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach15.11.07 #2 The Present, 2015Archival pigment print76.2 x 101.6 cm (print size)
90 x 110 cm (framed)
Edition 1 of 5View more details -
Joni Sternbach17.02.08 #6 Line Up, Santa Barbara, 2017Archival pigment print (from original tintype)61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach17.12.06 #6 Kara, Waikiki, Hawaii , 2017Archival pigment print61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach15.09.13 #2 Garçon Surfeur, 2015Archival pigment print61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach#6 Stacey, (Bobby-Jo) Stephen & Danielle, 2014Archival pigment print61 x 50.8 cm (print size)
82 x 69 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 8View more details -
Joni Sternbach#6 Stacey, (Bobby-Jo) Stephen & Danielle, 2014Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach#9 Oliver, 2013Archival pigment print (from original tintype)20.3 x 25.4 cmEdition of 15SoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach#1 Kazzie, 2011Archival pigment print (from original tintype)20.3 x 25.4 cmEdition of 15SoldView more details
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Joni Sternbach22.02.25 #2 Rod, 2022Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition 1 of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach17.12.17 #6 Brian + Haa , 2017Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach#2 Donald Takayama, 2010Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 50 cm (framed)Edition of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach15.08.18 #7 Nude Surfers, Montauk, NY, 2015Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 35 cm framedEdition 1 of 15View more details -
Joni Sternbach#6 Dan, 2007Archival pigment print20.3 x 25.4 cm
30 x 35 cm framedEdition of 15View more details
Surfboard – Monograph 2020
Keeper Of The Hearth by Odette England
High Tide Montauk Point, artist book 2019
Surfing by Jim Heimann published by Taschen 2016
The Memory of the Future, published by Musée de l’Elysée edited by Tatyana Franck 2016
Surf Site Tin Type, published by Damiani Editore – Monograph 2015
The Passengers published by Cafe Royal Books 2014
Promise Land published by Cafe Royal Books 2013
The Photograph Not Taken by Will Steacy 2012
Face to Face: Ocean Portraits by Huw Lewis-Jones 2010
SurfLand, published by Photolucida essay by Phillip Prodger – Monograph 2009
Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort by Peter Galassi – published by MOMA 1991