A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Martin Stupich was trained in painting and sculpture in Milwaukee at the Layton School of Art. In the early ‘70s he studied photography with Emmet Gowin in Ohio. Then, after 2 years as a steel worker back in Milwaukee, he moved to Atlanta to earn a master's degree in photography from Georgia State University as a student of John McWilliams.
He stepped from graduate school into a career photographing industrial landscape with early grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, documentation projects for the HABS HAER HALS collections at the Library of Congress, then as a photographer recording sites from Panama to Puget Sound for the Army Corps of Engineers.
In 2011 he began a relationship with the Smithsonian Institution, which commissioned him to document its revered museum buildings, the Washington Monument Grounds and historic National Mall.
His ASARCO project (ORE and EMPIRE) in 2021 enters its final phase, photographing the historic industrial landscape along the El Paso/Rio Grande borderlands–and south to Mexico City and north to Leadville in the Colorado Rockies.
Throughout Stupich’s career the line between commerce and art has been wiggly and blurred. His photographs of western dams and NASA Launch pads might hang in Tokyo galleries, while his industrial portfolios reside happily in official State Historic Preservation archives folded into dense historical reports.
His projects from Cape Canaveral to Kurdistan reaffirm his belief that all landscape is cultural, and that good photographs made there can contribute to the useful literature of this place and time.
RÉSUMÉ
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Independent Photographic Projects
Book and exhibition project: At the El Paso ASARCO copper smelter, and from central Mexico to northern Colorado–photographic documentation of the smelter’s demolition and the environmental restoration of the site, and its vast geographic-historic reach as: ORE and EMPIRE/Conquistadors to Guggenheims on the Camino Real (working title).
In Iraqi Kurdistan, photographing the earliest historic engineered landscapes in Mesopotamia, four weeks prior to ISIS incursions, 2014
In Panama, photographing construction of the “Post-Panamax” canal expansion project (2013); also in Panama, photographed the Canal, petroleum shipping and transfer operations in the Isthmus (1981-1999)
Documentation of Smithsonian Institution’s historic museum buildings undergoing restoration, the Smithsonian Institution as client, (2011-2016 )
Book project: RED DESERT, documenting Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin on the cusp of increased gas and coal exploration, with Annie Proulx (University of Texas Press, 2008).
Documentation of Western deserts’ cultural landscape as part of the Debris Fields portfolio (2008 - ongoing)
Book Project: DARK CALM Falcon Hoods / A Working Collection, with Stephen Bodio, nearing completion
In Carbon County, Wyoming: The Carbon County Air Show, aerial photographic documentation of industrial, agricultural and mining geography (1998-2002)
In Vietnam, survey of architecture and artifacts reflecting colonial influences of the Chinese, French and Americans (1996)
In the Western United States: project to photograph monumental engineering/water projects along major rivers of the arid west, work which is presently incorporated into The Water In The West Project (1989-2000)
In Japan, a portfolio project documenting the urban/industrial interface on the rim of Tokyo Bay (1991-2002)
Teaching, Lectures, Symposia
University of New Mexico Historic Preservation Program: Guest speaker, 2017, 2018
Invited panel member: Department of the Interior, Library of Congress and National Archives consultant on photographic archiving in the digital age, Washington, DC, 2017
Exhibition and Gallery Talk, Fotofest International, Houston, TX, 2016
George Pearl Fellows' Lecture: CAMERAMAN OBSCURA–Forty Years Sneaking Around In Broad Daylight, University of New Mexico, 2015
Guest Lectures and Symposia: Teach Photographing the Built Environment, University of New Mexico, 2009-2014; Guest Lecture, The Roswell Art Center and Museum, on the Red Desert project and book, 2009; Artist Lecture Series - University of New Mexico Art Museum, on the Red Desert project, January 2008; Symposium: Red Desert – A Public Conversation About the Value of Place, University of Wyoming Art Museum Sept. 2007; Workshop on The Red Desert Project, Tattered Cover Bookstore, Denver October, 2003; Landscape 2000 symposium lecture series, University of Wyoming Art Museum 2000; Tufts University, 1994; Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta 1996, 2000; Georgia State University, Atlanta 1996; Photographic Resource Center 1996 and at Water in the West conferences across the US during the 1990s.
Associated Faculty, University of New Mexico, teaching Photographing the Built Environment, 2009-ongoing
Adjunct Instructor of Photography, Massachusetts College of Art (1986-87); the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1988, 1994); Boston College, 1989; Photography Department manager, San Francisco Art Institute, 1984-1986.
Selected Grants and Awards
2015 George Pearl Fellow, University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning
Grant from New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, to make large-format and digital photographic document of Santa Fe’s Scottish Rite Temple, 2015
Custodial Trustee Gift, ASARCO portfolio donation to UTEP Special Collections, 2013
Nominee, United States Artist Fellowship, 2008, 2017
Juried into Review Santa Fe, 2007, 2010, 2013
First Place, High and Dry, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 2003; Honorable Mention, 2004
Exhibition Grant, Boston Society of Architects, exhibition of Industrial Landscape photographs, Boston Architectural Center, 1994
New England Foundation for the Arts, Photography Fellowship, 1993
Nevada Council for the Arts, Photography Fellowship, Great Basin Panorama Project, 1983-84
National Endowment for the Arts Photography Grants, Atlanta MARTA documentation, 1977, 1979
Polaroid Corporation Artist’s Support program, 1988-90
Selected Publications (Alphabetical)
Altered Landscape, University of Nevada Press, 1999
Ansel Adams/New Light, Essays on His Legacy and Legend, The Friends of Photography, 1993
Architecture Record, September 1993
Arid Waters, University of Nevada Press, 1993
A River Too Far, University of Nevada Press, 1990
Canals, W. W. Norton, 2005
Framing the West, Yale, 2010
Harper’s Magazine, June, 1998; July, 2000
Landmark American Bridges, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1993
The Paris Review, September, 2004
Through the Lens of the City, The NEA Photography Surveys of the 1970s, University Press of Mississippi, 2005
Photography, 8th & 9th editions, Norton, 2005, 2007
Telling Stories, Reflections on Photography from the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Michele Penhall, UNM Press, 2015
The Polaroid Book, Taschen, 2005
Red Desert, co-author with Annie Proulx, University of Texas Press, 2008
Undermining, Lucy Lippard, New Press, 2014
Selected Exhibitions (*solo)
The Great Unknown: Artists at Glen Canyon and Lake Powell, New Mexico Museum of Art, 2019
Fotofest International, Houston, TX, 2016*
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, 2015
Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, 2015
Red Line Gallery, Denver, 2015
Santa Fe University of Art and Design, 2014, 2015
Van Deren Coke Gallery, University of New Mexico Art Museum, 2013*
Canton Museum of Art, Ohio among others, 2013 (“Environmental Impact”, toured the U.S. through 2016)
CENTER Santa Fe, 2013
Santa Fe University of Art and Design and Santa Fe Community Gallery, 2013
AXLE Contemporary, Santa Fe, 2013
Phoenix Art Museum, From Above, 2013
Joslyn Museum of Art, Omaha, 2011
Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2010
Etherton Gallery, Tucson, 2011*
University of New Mexico Art Museum, 2008
University of Wyoming Art Museum, 2007*
FotoFest Biennial, Houston TX, 2006, 2007
Witte Museum, San Antonio, TX, 2005
Center for Creative Arts, Santa Fe, NM, 2005
FotoFest Biennial, Houston, TX, 2004
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 2003, 2004
Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, BC, 2004
Photographic Resource Center, Boston: 1996, 1998, 2003
Norsk Museum for Fotografi, Horten, Norway: 2002
Photo Gallery International, Tokyo, Japan; 2002*
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; 2001
University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie; 2000
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; 2000
Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA; 2000
Alfred University, Alfred, NY; 2000
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; 1999
Photographic Resource Center, Boston; 1998
Atlanta Photography Group, Atlanta, GA; 1998
Princeton Museum; 1998
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; 1997
Photographic Resource Center, Boston; 1996, 1998
University of Colorado-Boulder, 1993
Salina Arts Center, Salina, KS; 1991
Sheppard Fine Arts Center, University of Nevada-Reno; 1991
Fotokina, Colon, Germany, 1990
Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Cambridge, MA , 1989
Boston Athenaeum, 1988
Houston Center for Photography, 1988, 1993
University of Texas-Austin, 1988
The National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., 1988
Massachusetts College of Art*, 1987
Western Nevada Community College*; 1986
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta; 1984
The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; 1984
Nevada Historical Society, Reno*; 1984
UNLV Museum, University of Nevada-Las Vegas*; 1984
Chan Elliot Gallery, Sacramento, CA; 1983
Middendorf-Lane Gallery, Washington, D.C.; 1982
Nevada Governor's Mansion, Carson City*; 1982
New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center; 1980
Northern Virginia Community College at Sterling*; 1979
Nexus Gallery, Atlanta; 1976, 77*, 78, 79, 80, 81*, 86
Rizzoli-Atlanta; 1977
Princeton University*; 1976