Scott Mead: Rites of Passage

Photographer Scott Mead (b.1954) revisits his formative years spent documenting New England, USA, in Rites of Passage for the first time. Shot over a five-year period between 1971 and 1976, we follow Mead through early adulthood and explore scenes of discovery, ritual, rural beauty and urban metropolis.

At a junction between an American road trip and a personal visual diary, Mead’s images depict a world as it was then, shaped by political upheaval, profound civil changes and the Cold War. The cloth-bound hardback book features 100 large-format prints of Mead’s poignant photographs to be considered in a new context.

Rites of Passage shows Mead with a camera always at hand and presents his delicate, often amusing and sometimes uneasy portraits alongside cityscapes, landscapes and snapshots of the lives of friends and strangers. All of the artist’s proceeds from Rites of Passage benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.

Scott Mead was born in Washington, D.C., in 1954 and lives in London. He was a photographer for 15 years when family and career intervened in positive ways. He spent many years in investment banking, mostly setting aside his camera but not his vision. He left finance in 2003 to return to his lifelong passion. In 2018, Mead exhibited his Above the Clouds series at Hamiltons Gallery, London, accompanied by a book of the same name published by Prestel. In 2022, Prestel published his second book Equivalents, an exploration of parallels and contrasts with an introduction by Brad Leithauser.