Mark Christopher Steinmetz (born 1961) is an American photographer. He makes black and white photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit". Steinmetz's work was shown in a group exhibition at the

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 ...

, New York in 1993/1994 and in solo exhibitions at the

Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is located in the Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1999, and in Stephen Goldring Hall at 925 Camp Street since 2003. The building The Ogden consists of two main buildin ...

in 2015, the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

in 2018 and at

Fotohof Fotohof is a Salzburg-based non-commercial gallery and publishing company specialising in contemporary fine art photography. Its sponsoring body is the Association for the Promotion of Auteur Photography, founded in 1981. FOTOHOF ''gallery'' ...

in Salzburg, Austria in 2019. He is the recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. His work is held in the collections of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Hunter Museum of American Art The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, early modernism, ...

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Project ...

, Chicago,

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 ...

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

and

, New York, and

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 ...

Life and work

Steinmetz was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and raised in the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

suburbs of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

Newton Newton most commonly refers to: * Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist * Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton Newton may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film * Newton ( ...

until he was 12. He then moved to the midwest before, aged 21, he went to study photography at the

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

in New Haven, Connecticut. He left that MFA program after one semester and in mid 1983, aged 22, moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in search of the photographer

Garry Winogrand Garry Winogrand (January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Wino ...

, whom he befriended. He moved to

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...

in 1999 and was still living and working there as of 2017. Steinmetz makes photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit", and "in the midst of activity". Most of his work has been made in the USA but also in Berlin, Paris, and Italy. His books combine portraits (portrait-like but spontaneous) and candid photos of people, and also include animals and still life photos. He finds many of his subjects whilst walking around but he has also spent time at

Little League Baseball Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League Baseball Inc) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization summer camp A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...

s. Steinmetz predominantly works with black and white film, usually

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 ...

, developed and printed in his own darkroom. He has mostly worked the same way with the same film, chemicals, and cameras since beginning in the mid 1980s.

Publications

Books of work by Steinmetz

*''Tuscan Trees.''

The Jargon Society The Jargon Society is an independent press founded by the American poet Jonathan Williams. Jargon is one of the oldest and most prestigious small presses in the United States and has published seminal works of the American literary avant-garde, i ...

, 2002. With text by Janet Lembke. . *''South Central.'' Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2007. . **Second edition. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2020. . *''South East.'' Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2008. . **Second edition. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2020. . *''Greater Atlanta.'' Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2009. . **Second edition. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2020. . *''Philip and Micheline.'' TBW, 2010. Subscription Series #3, Book #1. .

Elaine Stocki Elaine Stocki (born 1979) is a Canadian artist and professor known for her paintings, photographs and her abstract feminist art. Stocki lives in Los Angeles and teaches art at Fullerton University. Early life and education Stocki was born in ...

, Dru Donovan, and

Katy Grannan Katy Grannan (born 1969) is an American photographer and filmmaker. She made the feature-length film, ''The Nine.'' Her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitn ...

each had one book in a set of four. *''The Ancient Tigers of My Neighborhood.'' Six by Six, Set 1. Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2010. Anthony Hernandez,

Todd Hido Todd Hido (born 25 August 1968) is an American photographer. He has produced 17 books, had his work exhibited widely and included in various public collections. Hido is currently an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts in San F ...

Raymond Meeks Raymond Meeks (born 1963) is an American photographer. "Much of his work focuses on memory and place, and captures daily life with his family." He has published a number of books including ''Pretty Girls Wander'' (2011) which "chronicles his daught ...

Martin Parr Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in p ...

, and

Toshio Shibata is a Japanese photographer known for his large-format photographs of large-scale works of civil engineering in unpopulated landscapes. Shibata was born in Tokyo. He graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in 1972 and an M.F.A. in ...

each had one book in a set of sex. Edition of 100 copies. *''Italia: Cronaca di un Amore.'' One Picture Book 64. Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2010. . *''Idyll.'' Orchard Volume Three. Silas Finch, 2011. With

. . Some include the separate volume ''Pastoral'' by Steinmetz, in an edition of 90 copies. *''Summertime.'' Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2012. . *''Paris in my Time.'' Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2013. . Edition of 1000 copies. *''The Players.'' Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2015. . Edition of 1000 copies. *''Fifteen Miles to K-Ville.'' London: Stanley/Barker, 2015. . *''Angel City West: Volume One.'' NZ Library Set Two, Volume Six. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2016. . Edition of 350 copies. *''Angel City West: Volume Two.'' NZ Library Set Three. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2017. . With an introduction by John Bailey. Edition of 350 copies. *''Past K Ville.'' London: Stanley/Barker, 2018. . *''Angel City West: Volume Three.'' NZ Library. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2019. . Edition of 350 copies. *''Carnival.'' London: Stanley/Barker, 2019. . *''Summer Camp.'' Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2019. . *''Cats.'' One Picture Book Two #16. Paso Robles, CA: Nazraeli, 2020. . *''Berlin Pictures.'' Berlin: Kominek, 2020. With a text by Thomas Weski. .

Books with contributions by Steinmetz

*''Glister''. New Jersey, USA: Glister, 2020. Photographs by Christopher Anderson,

JH Engström JH Engström (born 1969) is a Swedish photographer and artist based in Stockholm. He was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2005. Biography Engström was born 1969 in Karlstad, Sweden. He graduated in 1997 from the Photograp ...

, Steinmetz, John Sypal, and

Ed Templeton Ed Templeton (born July 28, 1972) is an American professional skateboarder, contemporary artist, and photographer. He is the founder of the skateboard company, Toy Machine, a company that he continues to own and manage. He is based in Huntington ...

. With a transcript of an interview with Templeton.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*''South'',

, New Orleans, 2015 *''united states pt 2'', , Germany, 2017 *''Terminus'',

, Atlanta, 2018 *''united states'',

, Salzburg, Austria, 2019

Group exhibitions

*''New Photography 9: Christopher Giglio, Boris Mihailov, Mark Steinmetz, and Beat Streuli'',

, New York, 1993/1994

Awards

*1994:

from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

Collections

Steinmetz's work is held in the following public collections: *

: 5 prints (as of January 2019) *

, Chattanooga, TN: 2 prints (as of January 2019) *

, New York: 2 prints (as of January 2019) *

, Chicago: 1 print (as of January 2019) *

, New York: 23 prints (as of January 2019) *

, Kansas City, MO: 5 prints (as of January 2019) *

, New York: 5 prints (as of April 2021)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Steinmetz, Mark 1961 births Living people American photographers Photographers from New York City