Steve Fitch
American, b. 1949
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley campus, I began work on a project photographing the vernacular roadside of the American highway. I received two National Endowments for the Arts Fellowships to aid in the completion of this project, one in 1973 and the second in 1975. Eventually, the photographs were published in the monograph, Diesels and Dinosaurs, in 1976.
After receiving a master's degree in fine arts from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1978 I accepted a teaching position at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In 1981, as a member of the "Marks and Measures" project, I began photographing prehistoric Native American pictographs and petroglyph sites in the American West. This project was partly funded by the last National Endowment for the Arts Survey Grant awarded in 1981. My work on the project, along with that of the other four project members, was published in a monograph, Marks in Place: Contemporary Responses to Rock Art, by the University of New Mexico Press in 1988. I received several purchase awards in various exhibitions for photographs made during this period.
Partly as a result of the work I did for Diesels and Dinosaurs, I became interested in the artistic possibilities of neon and learned to fabricate my own neon pieces in 1981. I have made a number of neon installations over the past thirty years, several of which are permanently located in outdoor locations in New Mexico.
In 1990, after teaching at Princeton University for four years in the Visual Arts Program, I returned to New Mexico and began photographing the ongoing abandonment of the high Great Plains receiving the Eliot Porter Fellowship from the New Mexico Council for Photography in 1999 to aid in the completion of this project. In 2003 a book of these photographs entitled Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains was published by the University of New Mexico Press and a traveling exhibition of the photographs was organized by the University of New Mexico Art Museum. The entire exhibition of forty photographs was purchased by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Since 1990 I have taught photography at the College of Santa Fe.
Today, my wife and I live off the grid in a passive solar adobe house we constructed ourselves over six summers, beginning in 1984, on rural land in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. We use photovoltaic panels to meet all of our electricity needs and collect water in an extensive rainwater gathering system. Recently, I finished a project photographing in the Llano Estacado region of western Texas and eastern New Mexico. My work on the project, as well as that of five other photographers, was partly funded by a grant from the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech University and will be published in an upcoming monograph by Texas Tech University Press.(Biography provided by photo-eye Gallery)
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Steamboat Springs, Colorado, December
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
In “American Motel Signs” Steve Fitch crisscrossed the United States documenting the colorful dynamic, advertisements inviting weary traveler to park their car and pack it in for the...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 26, Shoshoni, Wyoming; June 9, 2021, color photograph, signed
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
"Highway 26, Shoshoni, Wyoming; June 9, 2021" is a color photograph by Steve Fitch. This piece is printed by the artist using archival pigment inks and is signed.
In American Motel Signs, Steve Fitch documents the changing landscape, capturing the bright neon motel signs littered across long highway expanses throughout the West.
The delightful photographs in this series, map out Fitch’s extensive journey to seek out a typology of visual relics that are quickly fading into the American collective memory. For Fitch, these motel signs carry an unquestionable enchantment in their folk originality — the blocky fonts and garish designs. His work is a road trip to the past, down lonesome highways where these emblems of roadside American...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway50, Wells, Nevada; September 14, 2018
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 93, Boulder City, Nevada; April 12, 2022
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 66, Holbrook, Arizona; April 16, 2022 (Globetrotter Motel)
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 66, Holbrook, Arizona; April 16, 2022
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 50, Wells, Nevada; September 14, 2018
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
Seligman, Arizona; April 15, 2022
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadsi...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch
Materials
Archival Pigment
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Find a wide variety of authentic Steve Fitch art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Steve Fitch in archival pigment print, pigment print, silver gelatin print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the contemporary style. Not every interior allows for large Steve Fitch art, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Peter Essick, Rowan Daly, and Tao Ruspoli. Steve Fitch art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $450 and tops out at $4,000, while the average work can sell for $650.