Steve Fitch Photography
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.to
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Artist: Steve Fitch
Highway 50, Green River, Utah; September 27, 2019
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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 281, Red Cloud, Nebraska; June 3, 2021
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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 50, Elko, 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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Tatum, New Mexico, August 22, 2014
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 ...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Polson, Montana, July 18, 2007
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 n...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Royal Motel, Highway 66, Elk City, Oklahoma
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
In reading the introduction of his first book Diesels and Dinosaurs, Fitch paints a vivid image of a young version of himself speeding down a two lane highway in back of his father's...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Custer, South Dakota, July 4, 1999
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 night. Tinged with nostalgia, these delightfully garish motel signs lovingly recall a mid 20th Century road culture speaking to a sense of independence and freedom central to the contemporary American identity. A trained anthropologist, Fitch’s approach to American Motel Signs is almost scientific. Images of a single subject are crafted with and observational distance and a democratic square frame inviting viewers to compare regional differences in detail, design, and landscape under the umbrella of a single society seemingly focused on fun, travel, and leisure. For Fitch much of his photographic work was inspired by childhood family road trips from Northern California to South Dakota...
Category
1990s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Waycross, Georgia, December, 1983
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 n...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Cherokee, North Carolina, August, 1982
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 n...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Abandoned Truck Stop, Winnemucca, Nevada; June 19, 1984
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
It'll Do Motel, Highway 66, Grants, New Mexico, January 11, 1982
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Sign on I-40 West of Tucumcari, New Mexico, July, 1990
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Oassis Court, Benson, Arizona; December 3, 1980
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Jaguar with a rattlesnake tail petroglyph, Three Rivers, New Mexico; January 10,
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Radio Tower near Sudan, Texas; October 18, 2010
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadside landscape including topologies of neon motel signs, drive-in movie theaters, radio towers...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 66, Peach Springs, Arizona; April 10, 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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 66, Holbrook, Arizona; July 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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 50, Wells, Nevada; September 14, 2018 (Shell Crest)
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 Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Socorro, New Mexico, July, 1983
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 ...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Las Vegas, Nevada, March 22, 2002 #4
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 ...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Willows & Orland, California, July 14, 2011
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 n...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
St. Francis, Kansas, August 26, 2014
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 n...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Socorro, New Mexico, July, 1983 #2
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 n...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Photogram, Archival Pigment
Wells, Nevada, September 14, 2018
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 n...
Category
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Albuquerque, New Mexico, August, 1980
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 n...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Siesta Motel, Highway 66, Moriarty, New Mexico, March 29, 1981
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Radio Tower between Trujillo & Las Vegas, New Mexico, September 9, 2006
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and evolving features of the western roadside landscape including topologies of neon motel signs, drive-in movie theaters, radio towers...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 66, Chambliss, California, February, 1986
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Utah and Colorado state line, Highway 50; October 16, 1982
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Vanishing Vernacular series.
Vanishing Vernacular features a selection of color works by photographer Steve Fitch focusing primarily on the distinctive, idiosyncratic, and ...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Arrow Motel, Highway 85, Espanola, New Mexico, March 23
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelors degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley camp...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Drive-in theater, San Fernando Valley, California
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelors degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley camp...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Motel, Highway 66, Holbrook, Arizona
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelors degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley camp...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Starlite Motel, Mesa, Arizona, December 28, 1980
By Steve Fitch
Located in Sante Fe, NM
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a bachelors degree in anthropology, and while teaching photography at the ASUC Studio on the Berkeley camp...
Category
20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Steve Fitch photography for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Steve Fitch photography 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 photography, 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 photography 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.