Joel Sternfeld: American Prospects at Luhring Augustine

These 14 color photos from Sternfeld's influential 1986 book, American Prospects (just reissued by D.A.P.), have never looked better or created a more excited buzz. That's partly because they've also never been this impressively large—a proportion that allows us to enter all the way into his most expansive landscapes—but size would mean nothing if the work weren't so visually engaging and psychologically acute. Sternfeld wasn't just making boffo images before Gursky and Struth; he was bringing a fresh, keen eye to America and Americans.