Steve Fitch Color 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.(Biography provided by photo-eye Gallery)
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Artist: Steve Fitch
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
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 Color Photography
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 Color 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 Color Photography
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 Color Photography
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 Color Photography
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 Color 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 Color 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 Color 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 Color 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 Color Photography
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 14, Dayton, Wyoming; June 7, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
El Paso, Texas, 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 ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Highway 50, Fallon, Nevada; December, 1981
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Texan Motel, Highway 64, Raton, New Mexico; December 19, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Salida, Colorado, June, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Christmas, Michigan; May
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Grandview Motel, Raton, New Mexico; December 18, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Bel Shore Motel sign, Highway 80, Deming, New Mexico; December, 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 evolving features of the western roadside landscape including topologies of neon motel signs...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Circle Drive-in theater, Waco, Texas; January 7, 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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Albuquerque, New Mexico, January, 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 ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Vaughn, New Mexico, July, 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 ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
San Antonio, Texas, September, 1985
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
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Albuquerque, New Mexico, January, 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 ca...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Mesa, Arizona, December, 1980 #5
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
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color 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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Tucumcari, New Mexico, December, 1989
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 Color 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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Garden City, Kansas, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Mesa, Arizona, December, 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 ca...
Category
1980s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Mina, Nevada, July 19, 2016
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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Thomas, Oklahoma; September 23, 2015
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Stroud, Oklahoma, September 23, 2015
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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Russell, Kansas, July, 1992
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
1990s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Kansas, September, 1986
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Albuquerque, New Mexico, March, 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
2010s Contemporary Steve Fitch Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Hackberry, Arizona, March, 2002
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 Color Photography
Materials
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 Color 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 Color Photography
Materials
Photogram, Archival Pigment
Grandview Motel, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Drive-in theater, Van Horn, Texas;January 2, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Blue Swallow Motel, Hwy.66, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Motel, Raton, New Mexico; 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Dinosaur, Colorado; March 16, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Pueblo, Colorado; June
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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Sandia Motel, Highway 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico; August, 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 Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Steve Fitch color photography for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Steve Fitch color photography available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Steve Fitch in archival pigment print, pigment print, photogram 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 color photography, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Zoë Zimmerman, Tom Chambers, and Stephen Mallon. Steve Fitch color 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 $2,000, while the average work can sell for $650.