Alec Soth

Herman's Bed, Kenner, Louisiana, 2002From the series ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’

Alec Soth Biography

Alec Soth, a Minneapolis-based photographer born in 1969, is celebrated as a leading contemporary photographer working today. His work is widely recognized for documenting American social and geographic landscapes in the Midwestern United States. Early in his career Soth self-published a book of photographs entitled Sleeping by the Mississippi, which evolved from a series of road trips along the Mississippi River made between 1999 and 2002. This book of photographs catapulted his career and won him much attention from art critics who noted that his photographs conveyed a strong sense of intimacy with the landscape. One of Soth's photos from this book, entitled Charles, can be considered a direct attribution of his success as it was used as a poster for the 2004 Whitney Biennial. 

After initial success with Sleeping by the Mississippi, Alec Soth went on to publish a few more critically acclaimed photobooks, including NIAGARA (2006), where he documented people and places around Niagara Falls, and Broken Manual (2010), which looked to those Americans who have abandoned civilization in favor of inspiration. 

Soth's photographs have been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including survey shows at Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010), and Media Space in London (2015). In addition to his recognition for his critically acclaimed photobooks, Soth has been the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize and Golden Light Book Award in 2006, PhotoVision Award in 2008, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. His work is in the permanent collections of many museums across the United States such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art among many others.