b. Wichita Falls, TX 1942

Frank Gohlke is known for his large format landscape photographs depicting the monumental and expansive in multiple geographical ranges.

The vicissitude of a man-altered landscape is of central interest to Gohlke, which is most apparent in his series Landscapes (1969-79) and Grain Elevators (1973-77), revealing human habitation and activity–freeway embankments, homemade trailers, grain elevators, and silos–that are latent in accordance with its pastoral surroundings.

Gohlke is also concerned with the sublime in geographic phenomena such as his Mt. St. Helens (1981-90) project that document the after-effects of the natural landscape following the 1979 tornado that wrecked his hometown. Gohlke thus considers these sites of transformation to reflect the dynamic and complex relationship between humans and their cultural geography. 

Education

1964 B.A. in English Literature at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas
1964-66 M.A. in English Literature at Yale University, New Haven

Teaching

2007- Laureate Professor of Photography at the University of Arizona and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Creative Photography, both in Tucson, AZ.
1994-2007 Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College, The School of Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The Massachusetts College of Art
1989-94 The Massachusetts College of Art
1968-71 Middlebury College, Vermont. Establishes the school's first photography program.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2015 Work in Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now, New York, NY
2013 American Vesuvius: The Aftermath of Mount St. Helens, The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH
2012 Mount St. Helens, Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, CA
One Thing and Another, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
2009 Early Landscapes: 1968-1978, Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, CA
Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
2008 Where We Live: Queens, New York 2003-2004, The Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC
2007 Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke, The Amon Carter Museum, Texas. Traveling to The Addison Gallery of American Art, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the Center for Creative Photography
2005 Mount St. Helens: Photographs by Frank Gohlke, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
2005 The Altered Landscape, Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC
1999 The Intimate and the Infinite: Waterscapes by Frank Gohlke and Stuart Klipper, Dorsky Gallery, NYC.
1997 Making Waves: The Sudbury River, New England Science Center, Worcester, Massachusetts, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1995 On Edge: Landscapes 1972-1990, Bonni Benrubi Gallery, NYC
Conversations in the Park, Reggio Emilia, Italy
1994 Mt. St. Helens, Florida International University, Miami
1993 Mt. St. Helens as a Public Landscape, Gallery of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Living Water: Photographs of the Sudbury River by Frank Gohlke, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
1992 Franklin Parrasch Gallery, NYC
1989 Two Days in Louisiana, (with Gregory Conniff), Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
1988 Landscapes from the Middle of the World: Photographs 1972-1987, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
1983 Mt. St. Helens: Work in Progress, Daniel Wolf Gallery, New York, NY
Mt. St. Helens: Work in Progress, MoMA, New York, NY
1981 Film in the Cities Gallery, St. Paul, MN
1980 University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
1978 Grain Elevators, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1975 Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Ft. Worth, TX
Light Gallery, New York
1974 Art Institute of Chicago (with Edward Ranney)

Selected Group Exhibitions

2015 Land Lines, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
2012 America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI
2011 New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Landesgalerie Linz, Austria
Wall Works, DeCorvova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
Reinstallation of Edward Steichen Photography Galleries, Museum of Modern Art, New York
La Morada del Hombre (The Dwelling Life of Man), Foto Calectania Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
Creative Continuum: The History of the Center of Creative Photography, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
2010 New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
Exposing Time, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
On the Road: A Legacy of Walker Evans, Robert Lehman Art Center at Brooks School, North Andover, MA
The City Proper, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
2009 New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, CA
Photocartographies: Tattered Fragments of the Map, g727, Los Angeles
Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the West, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Reality Revisited: Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Locating Landscape: New Strategies, New Technologies, Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles
2004 Six from the 70’s, Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC
2002 Seen: Photographs from The George Gund Foundation Collection, The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH
Photographers, Writers, and the American Scene, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
1999 Pictures of Europe, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
1998 Expanded Visions: the Panoramic Photograph, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
1995 From Icon to Irony: German and American Industrial Photography, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston
1994 Recent Acquisitions, The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.
Dialogues with Photography: The Monson Collection, The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle
1993 Contemporary American Photography, Jingshan Tushuguan, Guangzhou, China
1992 More Than One Photography, MoMA, NYC
1989 Photography Now, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
1988 Tradition and Change: Contemporary American Landscape Photography, Houston Center for Photography, TX
The Second Israeli Photography Biennial, Mishkan Le'Omanut, Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel
1987 American Dreams, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
1985 Variance, MoMA, NYC; Paris-New York-Tokyo, Tsukuba Museum of Photography, Tsukuba, Japan; Miyagi Museum of Art, Japan
1983 An Open Land: Photographs of the Midwest 1852-1982, Art Institute of Chicago
1981 Photography: A Sense of Order, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, PA
American Landscapes, MoMA, New York
1979 Photographers of the 70's, Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1978 Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960, MoMA, New York
1975 New Topographics, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY

Bibliography

Landscapes from the Middle of the World: Photographs 1972-1987. (Untitled 46, The Friends of Photography, San Francisco, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1988). Introduction by Ben Lifson.
Paysages Photographies. Editions Hazan, Paris, 1989, pp. 581-604 (Final report of la Mission Photographique de la DATAR).
Frank Gohlke. Measure of Emptiness: Grain Elevators in the American Landscape (Baltimore, 1992). With a concluding essay by John C. Hudson.
The Sudbury River: A Celebration. DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and The Sudbury Valley Trustees, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1993.
Linea di Confine della Provincia di Reggio Emilia, Laboratorio di Fotografia 7: Frank Gohlke, Parco del Gigante. Comune di Rubiera and Provincia di Reggio Emilia, Rubiera, Italy, 1995.
Annual Report of the George Gund Foundation. Cleveland, Ohio, 1998
The Intimate and the Infinite: Waterscapes by Frank Gohlke and Stuart Klipper. New York City, 1999.
Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke, The Center for American Places, 2007
Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews. Holart Books, Tucson, AZ, 2009

 

Selected Public Collections

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Art Institute of Chicago
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Cleveland Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

Awards and Honors

2013 Fulbright Scholar Grant
1999-2000 National Millennium Survey
1983 McKnight Foundation/Film in the Cities Photography Fellowship
1979-80 Bush Foundation Artist's Fellowship
1986-87 National Endowment for the Arts
1984-85 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships
1977-78 National Endowment for the Arts
1975-76 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships