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Alec Soth has achieved an international reputation. His chromogenic color photographs are rooted in traditions developed by the great documenters of the American experience, such as, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and William Eggleston. Critics have especially praised Alec Soth's impressive compositional skills and commented on the Old Master formality, poise and authority in his photographs.
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| All Artwork |
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| Adelyn, Ash Wed, New Orleans, LA, 2000 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 40 x 50 inches |
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| The day after Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, I went to St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The Cathedral is the oldest in the United States. Don Almonaster y Roxas gave it as a gift to the city after the Parish Church was burned in the Great Fire of 1788. Outside of the Cathedral, I found Adelyn. Her full name, she said, is Adelyn de Chartreuse Kocake Shockadelica. I asked her what she would be giving up for Lent. "I'm not even Catholic," she laughed,"these are cigarette ashes." |
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| Joshua, Angola State Prison, LA, 2002 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 40 x 50 inches |
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| A teardrop tattoo has several meanings, but is usually a sign that an inmate has killed someone. Joshua (prisoner #429972) is serving a forty-year sentence for murder. |
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| Luxora, AR, 2002 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 40 x 50 inches |
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| The Reverend and Margaret's bedroom, Vicksburg, MS, 2002 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 40 x 50 inches |
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| At age 63, after four marriages, Reverend H.D. Dennis (b. 1916) fell in love with Margaret Rogers. Along with a marriage proposal came a promise to convert her humble Highway 61 store, Margaret's Grocery, into a palace to honor God. Back in the living quarters, the Reverend produced a small shrine, not to God, but Margaret. |
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| Charles Lindbergh's Boyhood Bed, Little Falls, MN, 1999 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 32 x 40 inches |
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| In Lindbergh's speech at the 1973 dedication of his boyhood home, he remembered seeing an airplane for the first time when he was nine years old:
"Flying upriver below higher branches of trees, a biplane was less than two hundred yards away—a frail, complicated structure, with the pilot sitting out in front between struts and wires. I watched it fly quickly out of sight....I imagined myself with wings on which I could swoop down off our roof into the valley, soaring through air from one river bank to the other, over stones of the rapids, above log jams, above the tops of trees and fences."
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| Jim, Wax Museum, Hannibal, MO, 2002 |
| chromogenic print mounted to Dibond |
| 40 x 32 inches |
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| From Chapter 19 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark—which was a candle in a cabin window; and someimes on the water you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim, he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened.
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| The Farm, Angola State Prison, Angola, LA, 2002 |
| chromogenic print |
| 16 x 20 inches |
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| In 1880, Confederate Major Samuel James purchased an eight thousand acre plantation called Angola (named after the area in Africa where his former slaves came from). he began housing Louisiana inmates in what used to be the old slave quarters.
Angola State Prison has since grown to contain 5100 inmates and 1500 correction officers. Surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, the prison maintains 18,000 acres of prime farmland. Most inmates work forty hours a week producing corn, soybeans and beef.
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| Frankie, Ferriday, LA, 2002 |
| chromogenic print |
| 16 x 20 inches |
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| Frankie Jean lives in the Lewis Family Museum in Ferriday, Louisiana. The house displays memorabilia from her brother, Jerry Lee Lewis, and cousins Jimmy Swaggart and Mickey Gilley. To preserve the condition of the beds, Frankie uses a sleeping bag on the floor. |
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 Current Work
 2009 Exhibition
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