1981-06-12 DS Athabasca River Jasper Canada

David Stephenson (born 1955) is an American-Australian

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

photographer known for his representations of the

sublime Sublime may refer to: Entertainment * SuBLime, a comic imprint of Viz Media for BL manga * Sublime (band), an American ska punk band ** ''Sublime'' (album), 1996 * ''Sublime'' (film), a 2007 horror film * SubLime FM, a Dutch radio station dedic ...

. His photographic subjects have included landscapes from America to Australia, the Arctic and Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, European sacred architecture, and day- and nighttime skyscapes. He has lived in

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

since 1982.

Early life and education

David Stephenson was born in 1955 in Washington, D.C., the third child of two scientists, Elizabeth W. and John L. Stephenson. While attending public schools in suburban Maryland, he took Saturday classes at the

Corcoran School of the Arts and Design The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...

under artists including

Juan Downey Juan Downey (May 11, 1940 – June 9, 1993) was a Chilean artist who was a pioneer in the fields of video art and interactive art. Early life and education Downey was born in Santiago, Chile. His father, David Downey V., was a distinguished ar ...

. Drawn to nature and the environment from an early age, he was inspired by the writings and environmental advocacy of

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

. His love of the mountains drew him to Colorado, where he began undergraduate studies in the sciences and humanities at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...

in 1973. Classes with Gary Metz stimulated his growing interest in photography, and he completed a BFA in studio art and a BA in art history in 1979. In Colorado he also met Robert Adams, who lived in nearby Longmont and was an early mentor. He moved to Albuquerque in 1979 to start graduate studies at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, working under Thomas Barrow,

Beaumont Newhall Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book ''The History of Photography'' remains one of the most significa ...

, and Van Deren Coke. Photographing across the American Southwest and California from 1979 to 1981 with a

large format Large format refers to any imaging format of or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the or size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger than the frame o ...

camera, and inspired by artistic precedents from

Carleton Watkins Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916) was an American photographer of the 19th century. Born in New York, he moved to California and quickly became interested in photography. He focused mainly on landscape photography, and Yosemite Valley was a ...

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and m ...

, he produced his first major body of work, ''New Monuments'', which focussed on industrial structures in the landscape. After completing a Master of Arts in 1980, he was awarded a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

grant, which allowed him to travel to

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

in 1981 to photograph the newly completed

Trans-Alaska Pipeline The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of ...

. Responding to the Pipeline’s linearity and influenced by 19th century photographers such as Watkins, he first worked with panoramic composites in Alaska, a pictorial strategy he would return to periodically for subsequent series. Stephenson completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico in 1982 with an exhibition of the Alaskan panoramas, and a dissertation on the 19th century photographers of the transcontinental railroad. In 2001, he was awarded a PhD in Fine Arts from the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first pro ...

Work

Stephenson moved to Australia in 1982 to take up a junior teaching position at the

School of Art, at the encouragement of

Thomas Joshua Cooper Thomas Joshua Cooper (born December 19, 1946) is an American photographer. He is considered among the premier contemporary landscape photographers.Everett, Deborah (2008) "Thomas Joshua Cooper (b. 1946), Cherokee Photographer" pp. 27-29 ''In'' Eve ...

, who had been teaching a summer school there. Agreeing to stay only for two years, in 1984 he was made a tenured faculty member and led the photography program at the school, along with later positions as postgraduate coordinator and research coordinator, until his retirement from teaching in 2013. Stephenson has worked on many long-term overlapping projects in his pursuit of the photographic representation of the

in time and space, using a variety of

medium format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the used in 35&nbs ...

and

cameras and film types, and more recently digital photography. An exploration of the relationship of photography to time has been a recurrent theme in his work, both through the use of long exposures, and the compositing of sequential exposures. His photographic series include ''New Monuments'' (1979-81), ''Composite Landscapes'' (1982-88), ''Clouds'' (1990-93), ''Vast'' (1990-91), ''The Ice'' (1991-92), ''Domes'' (1993-2005), Vaults (2003-09), ''Star Drawings'' (1995-2009), ''Drowned'' (2001-02), Marking Time (2003-05), ''Light Cities'' (2005-13), ''Time Slice'' (2014-22), and ''Survivors'' (2019-22).

Publications

*''Stars'' / photographs by David Stephenson; essay by Keith F. Davis, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, 1999. *''Skeletons'' / photographs by David Stephenson; essay by Greg French, Space and Light, Fern Tree, 2003. ISBN 0975039504 *''Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture'', Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2005. ISBN 1-56898-549-5 *''Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture'', Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2009. ISBN 978-1-56898-840-5

Exhibitions

David Stephenson’s photographs have been presented in hundreds of group exhibitions and over sixty solo exhibitions including: * 1983: ''Australian Perspecta 1983,'' Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney * 1988: ''Australian Photography: the 1980's'', Australian National Gallery, Canberra * ''1992: Location'', Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne * 1993: ''David Stephenson:'' ''The Ice'', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne * 1994: ''Landed: Landscape Art in Australia, 1960-90,'' Australian National Gallery, Canberra * ''1994: An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital,'' Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, and international tour * 1998: ''Sublime Space: David Stephenson Photographs 1989-98'', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne * 1999: ''Tempus Fugit/Time Flies'', Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City * 2001: ''Space + Light: David Stephenson Photographs, 1982-1996'', Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart * 2001: ''Starlight: David Stephenson Photographs'', Cleveland Museum of Art * 2002: ''Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968-2002'', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne * 2006: ''Symétries sublimes, photographies de David Stephenson'', Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris * 2007: ''Cross Currents: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art'', Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney * 2010: ''In the Balance'', Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney * 2011: ''Transcendence: Photographs by David Stephenson'', Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne * 2011: ''Luminous World – Contemporary Art from the Wesfarmers Collection'', Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth * 2013: ''Australia: land and landscape'', Royal Academy of Arts, London; organised with National Gallery of Art, Canberra * 2014 ''Perduti nel paesaggio/Lost in Landscape'', Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy * 2015: ''The Photograph and Australia'', Art Gallery of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney * 2017: ''David Stephenson: Human Landscapes'', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney * 2018: ''Noorderlicht International Photofestival IN VIVO , the nature of nature'', Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen, The Netherlands * 2019: ''Civilization: The Way We Live Now'', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Collections

Stephenson’s photographs are held in many public collections, including: *

Ackland Art Museum The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland (1855–1940) to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is located a ...

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...

George Eastman Museum The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

*Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne *

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), located on George Street in Sydney's The Rocks neighbourhood, is solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting, and collecting contemporary art, from across Australia and around the world. It is ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, placi ...

Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art The Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, colloquially known as QAGOMA, is an art museum in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It consists of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), which is the main building, and a second gallery, the Ga ...

Awards

*1980,

Emerging Artist Fellowship *1992, 1996

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

Grants *2000,

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

Grant *2008-09,

Fellowship *2014-17,

Discovery Project *2021, Hadley's Art Prize

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stephenson, David 1955 births 20th-century American photographers 20th-century Australian photographers 21st-century American photographers 21st-century Australian photographers American expatriates in Australia Artists from Tasmania American fine art photographers Landscape photographers Living people Photographers from Washington, D.C. Photography academics University of Colorado Boulder alumni University of New Mexico alumni Academic staff of the University of Tasmania