Scope and Contents
Photographs created by Steve Fitch that document sites chiefly in the American West, 1970-2016, and printed 1990-2017. The collection contains 83 prints from his photographic projects, which include views of the vernacular roadside of highways, such as neon motel signs and hand-painted business signs, drive-in movie theaters, abandoned buildings, and radio towers. Photographs include sites in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Signed, titled, and dated by the photographer on versos of prints.
Signed, titled, and dated by the photographer on versos of prints.
Dates
- 1970-2017
Creator
- Fitch, Steve, 1949- (Photographer)
Language of Materials
In English.
Conditions Governing Access
The Steve Fitch Photographs are the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Paul Kopeikin Gallery on the Frederick W. and Carrie S. Beinecke Fund for Western Americana, 2017.
Ten prints: gift of Steve Fitch, 2017. For more information see entries for items in this guide.
Ten prints: gift of Steve Fitch, 2017. For more information see entries for items in this guide.
Arrangement
Organized into four series: I. Black-and-white Photographs, 1970-2016. II. Color Photographs, 1990-2000. III. Color Inkjet Prints, 1980-2017. IV. Color Inkjet Prints Panoramas, 2013-2016.
Extent
25 Linear Feet (9 boxes)
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Overview
Photographs created by Steve Fitch that document sites chiefly in the American West, 1970-2016, and printed 1990-2017. The collection contains 83 prints from his photographic projects, which include views of the vernacular roadside of highways, such as neon motel signs and hand-painted business signs, drive-in movie theaters, abandoned buildings, and radio towers. Photographs include sites in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Steve Fitch (born 1949)
Steve Fitch graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology. He then worked as an instructor and darkroom supervisor at the Berkeley Art Studio of the Associated Students of the University of California while simultaneously working on a project photographing the vernacular roadside of American highways. Photographs from this project, which benefitted from two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1973 and 1975, appeared in his book, Diesels and Dinosaurs: Photographs from the American Highway (Berkeley, California: Long Run Press, 1976).
Fitch earned a Master of Arts in Photography from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1978. He was then a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado, Boulder, from 1979 to 1985. He also collaborated with other photographers, including Linda Connor, Rick Dingus, John Pfahl, and Charles Roitz, in a project, Marks and Measures: Rock Art in Modern Art Context, funded by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1981. This project photographically documented prehistoric Native American pictograph and petroglyph sites in the American West and led to their co-authored book, Marks in Place: Contemporary Responses to Rock Art (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988) with essays by Polly Schaafsma and Keith Davis as well as a foreword by Lucy Lippard.
From 1986 to 1990, Fitch was a lecturer in the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University. He then returned to New Mexico and began photographing the High Plains. In 1999, he received the Eliot Porter Fellowship from the New Mexico Council for Photography to complete the project. Photographs from this project appeared in his book, Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).
Since 1990, Fitch has taught photography at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design (formerly known as The College of Santa Fe).
In 2011, Fitch published Motel Signs (Portland, Oregon: Nazraeli Press, 2011). He also contributed photographs to Steve Bogener, William E. Tydeman, Barry Holstun Lopez, et al, Llano Estacado: An Island in the Sky (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2011). In 2016, he published American Motel Signs 1980-2008 (London: The Velvet Cell, 2016) and in 2018 he published Vanishing Vernacular: Western Landmarks (Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2018).
Fitch earned a Master of Arts in Photography from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1978. He was then a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado, Boulder, from 1979 to 1985. He also collaborated with other photographers, including Linda Connor, Rick Dingus, John Pfahl, and Charles Roitz, in a project, Marks and Measures: Rock Art in Modern Art Context, funded by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1981. This project photographically documented prehistoric Native American pictograph and petroglyph sites in the American West and led to their co-authored book, Marks in Place: Contemporary Responses to Rock Art (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988) with essays by Polly Schaafsma and Keith Davis as well as a foreword by Lucy Lippard.
From 1986 to 1990, Fitch was a lecturer in the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University. He then returned to New Mexico and began photographing the High Plains. In 1999, he received the Eliot Porter Fellowship from the New Mexico Council for Photography to complete the project. Photographs from this project appeared in his book, Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).
Since 1990, Fitch has taught photography at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design (formerly known as The College of Santa Fe).
In 2011, Fitch published Motel Signs (Portland, Oregon: Nazraeli Press, 2011). He also contributed photographs to Steve Bogener, William E. Tydeman, Barry Holstun Lopez, et al, Llano Estacado: An Island in the Sky (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2011). In 2016, he published American Motel Signs 1980-2008 (London: The Velvet Cell, 2016) and in 2018 he published Vanishing Vernacular: Western Landmarks (Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2018).
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.
These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards. For more information, please refer to the Beinecke Manuscript Unit Processing Manual.
Each folder in the collection contains a single photographic print or inkjet print.
These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards. For more information, please refer to the Beinecke Manuscript Unit Processing Manual.
Each folder in the collection contains a single photographic print or inkjet print.
- Arizona -- Pictorial works
- California -- Pictorial works
- Colorado -- Pictorial works
- Drive-in theaters -- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- Fitch, Steve, 1949-
- Inkjet prints
- Kansas -- Pictorial works
- Michigan -- Pictorial works
- Montana -- Pictorial works
- Nebraska -- Pictorial works
- Neon signs -- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- Nevada -- Pictorial works
- New Mexico -- Pictorial works
- Oklahoma -- Pictorial works
- Painted signs and signboards -- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- Photographic prints
- Photographs
- Radio and television towers -- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- Roadside architecture -- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- South Dakota -- Pictorial works
- Texas -- Pictorial works
- Utah -- Pictorial works
- West (U.S.) -- Pictorial works
- Wyoming -- Pictorial works
- Title
- Guide to the Steve Fitch Photographs
- Status
- In Progress
- Author
- by Matthew Daniel Mason
- Date
- January 2018
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.