Benjamin Mendlowitz

Benjamin Mendlowitz has traveled the globe for over 25 years to photograph wooden boats. He is well known throughout the boating world for his contributions to nautical publications and for his award-winning Calendar of Wooden Boats, which he has published since 1983.

Mendlowitz photographs have appeared regularly in feature articles and on the covers of the most respected boating magazines world wide, including Nautical Quarterly, Sail, WoodenBoat, Yachting, Cruising World, Motorboating, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors; Chasse-Maree and L’annee Bateau (France); Arte Navale (Italy); The Boatman, Classic Boat and Maritime Life & Traditions (Britain); Canadian Yachting; and Yacht (Germany). His work has also appeared in magazines such as Time, Esquire, Money, People, Atlantic Monthly, Connoisseur, Historic Preservation, Field & Stream, Down East, Yankee, Sports Illustrated, Road & Track, Men’s Journal, The London Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Graphis, among others. Photographs by Benjamin Mendlowitz have appeared on the covers of many trade and educational books.

W.W. Norton & Company, New York, published Wood, Water & Light in 1988, a large-format, full-color book featuring more than 180 of Mendlowitz’s finest images with accompanying text by Joel White. W.W. Norton has subsequently published five more full-color books of Mendlowitz photographs: A Passage in Time (1991), on Maine’s schooner fleet, text by Peter Spectre: The Book of Wooden Boats (1992), a “best of” collection from past editions of the Calendar of Wooden Boats, text by Maynard Bray; The Guide to Wooden Boats (1996), a photographic study of traditional sailboats, text by Maynard Bray; The Guide to Wooden Power Boats (1998), a companion volume to the first Guide featuring some of the most stunning and well-cared-for wooden power boats afloat today, text by Maynard Bray; and The Book of Wooden Boats, Volume II (2000), text by Maynard Bray. The latest book of Mendlowitz photography, Joel White: Boatbuilder, Designer, Sailor, with text by Bill Mahyer and Maynard Bray, was published by NOAH Publications in 2002.

Mendlowitz has taught courses in marine photography at the Rockport Photographic Workshops and the WoodenBoat School, and is a frequent lecturer at various maritime museums. He has been the featured subject on several television shows, including Boatworks, a national Public Television series; True North, Maine Public Television; Chronicle, WABC-TV Boston; and Thalassa, a popular French program about the sea.

The Philadelphia Maritime Museum mounted a one-man show entitled “Wood, Water and Light: The Classic Wooden Boat Photographs of Benjamin Mendlowitz,” which subsequently traveled to numerous maritime museums nationwide. Other exhibits of his work have been on view at Mystic Maritime Gallery, Mystic, CT; The Old Post Office Gallery, Thomaston, ME; Art of the Sea Gallery, Camden, ME; Harbor Square Gallery, Rockland, ME; Washington Street Fine Art Photography, Marblehead, MA; North Star Galleries, New York, NY and Newport, RI; The Museum of Yachting and the International Yacht Restoration School, Newport, RI; the Herreshoff Museum, Bristol, CT; various local galleries; and a special show in Sarnico, Italy.

Mendlowitz was born on February 14, 1948 and educated at the New Lincoln School, New York, NY, and Brandeis University (BA, 1970). He lives with his family on the coast of Maine.