Lewis Baltz

Lewis "Duke" Baltz (September 12, 1945 – November 22, 2014)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was an American visual artist, photographer, and educator. He was an important figure in the New topographics movement of the late 1970s and was one of the photographers featured in the seminal New Topographics exhibition at the Eastman House.<ref name="egs">Lewis Baltz Template:Webarchive Faculty Website at European Graduate School.</ref> His best known work was monochrome photography of suburban landscapes and industrial parks which highlighted his commentary of void within the "American Dream".<ref name="ohagan-guardian-obituary">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

He wrote for many journals, and contributed regularly to L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui.

Baltz's work is held in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,<ref name=":1" /> Metropolitan Museum of Art,<ref name=":2" /> Tate Modern,<ref name=":1" /> Los Angeles County Museum of Art,<ref name=":1" /> Whitney Museum of American Art,<ref name="whitney">Template:Cite web</ref> Art Institute of Chicago,<ref name="artic">Template:Cite web</ref> Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego,<ref name=":2" /> Philadelphia Museum of Art,<ref name=":2" /> and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.<ref name=":1" />

Early life and education

Lewis Baltz was born on September 12, 1945, in Newport Beach, California.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> His father died when he was age 11.<ref name=":1" />

Baltz attended Monterey Peninsula College in 1967.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He later graduated with a BFA degree in fine arts from San Francisco Art Institute in 1969; and held a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University).<ref name="rian">Template:Citation</ref>

Career

His work is focused on searching for beauty in desolation and destruction. Baltz's images describe the architecture of the human landscape: offices, factories and parking lots.<ref name="rian" /> His pictures are the reflection of control, power, and influenced by and over human beings. His minimalistic photographs in the trilogy Ronde de Nuit, Docile Bodies, and Politics of Bacteria, picture the void of the other.Template:Vague<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1974 he captured the anonymity and the relationships between inhabitation, settlement and anonymity in The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California.

His books and exhibitions, his "topographic work",<ref name="egs" /> such as The New Industrial Parks,<ref name=":0" /> Nevada, San Quentin Point, Candlestick Point, expose the crisis of technology and define both objectivity and the role of the artist in photographs.Template:Vague<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His work Candlestick Point is made of 84 photographs documenting a public space near Candlestick Park, ruined by natural detritus and human intervention.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Baltz moved to Europe in the late 1980s and started to use large colored prints.<ref name=":1" />

He published several books of his work including Geschichten von Verlangen und Macht, with Slavica Perkovic (Scalo, 1986). Other photographic series, including Sites of Technology (1989–92), depict the clinical, pristine interiors of hi-tech industries and government research centres, principally in France and Japan. In 1995, the story Deaths in Newport was produced as a book and CD-ROM. Baltz also produced a number of video works.

Baltz taught at various institutions, including Claremont Graduate School, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside), California State University, San Bernardino, and the IUAV University in Venice, Italy, where in 2006 he co-founded the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="ohagan-guardian-obituary" />

End of life, death and legacy

In 2002, Baltz became a professor for photography at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.<ref name="egs" /> He lived his last years between Paris and Venice. Baltz died on November 22, 2014, in Paris at the age of 69 following a long illness.<ref name="ohagan-guardian-obituary"/><ref name=":1" />

Awards

He received several scholarships and awards including a scholarship from the National Endowment For the Arts (1973, 1977),<ref name=":2" /> the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1977),<ref name="rian" /> US-UK Bicentennial Exchange Fellowship (1980),<ref name=":2" /> and Charles Brett Memorial Award (1991).

Publications

• Landscape: Theory, Lewis Baltz, Harry Callahan, Eliot Porter, Carol Digrappa and Robert Adams, 1980 Template:ISBN
• The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California, Lewis Baltz and Adam Weinburg, 2001 Template:ISBN
• The Deaths in Newport, onestar press, 2002
• The Tract Houses: Die Siedlungshauser (English and German Edition), Lewis Baltz, 2005 Template:ISBN
• The Prototype Works, Lewis Baltz, 2010 Template:ISBN
• Mario Pfeifer: Reconsidering The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California by Lewis Baltz, 1974, Lewis Baltz, Mario Pfeifer, Vanessa Joan Mueller, 2011 Template:ISBN
• Lewis Baltz: Candlestick Point, Lewis Baltz, 2011 Template:ISBN
• Lewis Baltz: Rule Without Exception / Only Exceptions, Lewis Baltz, 2012 Template:ISBN
• Lewis Baltz: Texts., Lewis Baltz, 2012 Template:ISBN
• Lewis Baltz, Lewis Baltz, 2017 Template:ISBN

Collections

Baltz's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum<ref name=":1" />
• Metropolitan Museum of Art<ref name=":2" />
• Tate Modern<ref name=":1" />
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art<ref name=":1" />
• Whitney Museum of American Art<ref name="whitney"/>
• Art Institute of Chicago<ref name="artic"/>
• Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego<ref name=":2" />
• Philadelphia Museum of Art<ref name=":2" />
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<ref name=":1" />
• National Gallery of Art<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

External links

• Oral history interview with Lewis Baltz, 2009 Nov. 15–17 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Lewis Baltz Faculty website at European Graduate School. (Biography, bibliography and articles)
• George Eastman House Lewis Baltz Series
• Lewis Baltz Archive, at the Getty Research Institute
• Lewis Baltz notebooks and ephemera, at Getty Research Institute
• Lewis Baltz: Prototypes/Ronde de Nuit National Gallery of Art 2011 exhibit