b. 1969, United States

Alec Soth Biography

Alec Soth is an American photographer known for his vivid large-format photographs showing portraits of strangers and abandoned landscapes in the American Midwest. A Member of Magnum Photos and recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), Soth's images echo the solitude and desolation in modern America.

Read More

Early Years

Soth was born in Minneapolis, where he lives and works. He studied at Sarah Lawrence College in New York until 1992. As a child, he was known to be very shy—even today, as he photographs others, Soth tends to get nervous. 'I think ... it's part of the exchange,' the artist states.

Alec Soth Photography

Alec Soth's photographs are produced over long periods of travel, mostly around the Midwest and the Southern United States. They are often site-specific, showing strangers and desolate landscapes. His work tends to focus on the 'off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America' according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth.

Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004)

Drawn to Diane Arbus' photographs, Soth traveled to the Mississippi River to make Sleeping by the Mississippi, a self-printed book featuring landscapes and portraits that led to his participation in the Whitney Biennial in 2004. The book was made over five years and first published by Steidl in 2004. One of the images, Charles, which shows a bearded man holding two planes, was used for the biennial's poster.

NIAGARA (2006)

Soth has been photographing different parts of America following the publication of Sleeping by the Mississippi. His second book, NIAGARA, was published in 2006 and showed photographs of married couples after their wedding, centered around a particular chapel in Niagara Falls.

Broken Manual (2006—2010)

For Broken Manual, Soth looked into places people go to retreat from civilisation. Over four years, the artist photographed monks, hermits, and runaways to create an underground guide for those looking to get away from life, produced under the pseudonym Lester B. Morrison.

Subsequent publications like Last Days of W document a country exhausted by the presidency of George W. Bush. These images are included in From Here to There: Alec Soth's America, a compilation of Soth's work since the 1990s.

Publishing

In 2008, Soth founded Little Brown Mushroom, a publishing house centered around visual storytelling, though which he prints his own and similar works as books, newspapers, and magazines.

Between 2012 and 2014, the artist traveled across America to work on his newspaper The LBM Dispatch and on assignments for publications like the New York Times Magazine. Resulting images were compiled in Songbook (2015), a reportage on American culture and the quest for human connection.

Awards and Accolades

Soth received the McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowship in 1999, 2004, and 2013, the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant in 2001, the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2003, and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography in 2013.

The photographer was also a finalist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2006 and has been a member of the Magnum Photo Agency since 2008.

Exhibitions

Soth's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including the 2004 Whitney Biennial and the São Paolo Biennial. A retrospective of Soth's work took place at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland in 2008.

Select solo exhibitions include I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, FOAM, Amsterdam (2020) and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2019); The Space Between Us, Shanghai Center of Photography (2020); Gathered Leaves, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki (2016); Broken Manual, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2012); Mississippi Niagara, Triennale di Milano, Milan (2010); From Here to There: Alec Soth's America, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2010); The Last Days of W, Gagosian Gallery, New York (2009); NIAGARA, Gagosian Gallery, New York and Wohnmaschine, Berlin (2006).

Select group exhibitions include Not standing still: new approaches in documentary photography, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (2021); Her Story: A Century of Women Writers, National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. (2020); Go Down Moses, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2019); Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins, Barbican Centre, London (2018); and In Focus: Expressions, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2018).

Published works include Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogota (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), and Gathered Leaves (2015), which compiles 29 large postcards and four mini facsimiles of Soth's previous books with an essay by Aaron Schuman in an embossed clamshell box.

Gallery

On Ocula, Soth is represented by Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, and Loock Galerie in Berlin.

Website and Instagram

The artist's website can be found here, his instagram can be found here.

Elaine Y.J Zheng | Ocula | 2021

Alec Soth
featured artworks

View 17 More
Crazy Legs Saloon, Watertown, New York by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Crazy Legs Saloon, Watertown, New York, 2012 Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond
58 x 76 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Kristin by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Kristin, 2007 Digital chromogenic print mounted to Dibond
58 x 48 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Near Gainesville, Georgia by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Near Gainesville, Georgia, 2014 Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond
58 x 76 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Near San Antonio, Texas by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Near San Antonio, Texas, 2013 Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond
44 x 36 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Park Hyatt Hotel, Tokyo (Mirror) by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Park Hyatt Hotel, Tokyo (Mirror), 2015 Archival pigment print
40 x 30 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Misty by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Misty, 2005 Framed digital chromogenic mounted to Dibond
48 x 40 inches
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Still Life III by Alec Soth contemporary artwork print
Alec Soth Still Life III, 2023 Archival pigment print
127 x 101.6 cm
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
Pacific Coast Highway by Alec Soth contemporary artwork photography
Alec Soth Pacific Coast Highway, 2016 Archival pigment print
101.6 x 127 cm
Sean Kelly Request Price & Availability
View 17 More

Alec Soth
upcoming & recent
exhibitions

Represented by this
Ocula Member Gallery

Sean Kelly contemporary art gallery in New York, United States
Sean Kelly Los Angeles, New York, Taipei

Alec Soth in
Ocula Magazine

Learn more about the market for works
by Alec Soth.
Enquire for a confidential discussion. Enquire Now
Simon Fisher, Ocula CEO
Ocula Advisor
Simon Fisher
Christoper Taylor, Ocula Advisor
Ocula Advisor
Christopher Taylor
Eva Fuchs, Ocula Advisor
Ocula Advisor
Eva Fuchs
Rory Mitchell, Ocula Advisor
Ocula Advisor
Rory Mitchell
Ocula discover the best in contemporary art icon.
Follow Alec Soth
Stay ahead.
6 new artworks have recently been added.
Receive updates on new artworks,
exhibitions and articles.
Your personal data is held in accordance with our privacy policy.
Follow
Do you have an Ocula account?
Ocula discover the best in contemporary art icon.
Get Access
Join Ocula to request price and availability of artworks, exhibition price lists and build a collection of favourite artists, galleries and artworks.
Do you have an Ocula account? Login
What best describes your interest in art?

Subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming exhibitions, available works, events and more.
By clicking Sign Up or Continue with Facebook or Google, you agree to Ocula's Terms & Conditions. Your personal data is held in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Thank you for joining us. Just one more thing...
Soon you will receive an email asking you to complete registration. If you do not receive it then you can check and edit the email address you entered.
Close
Thank you for joining us.
You can now request price and availability of artworks, exhibition price lists and build a collection of favourite artists, galleries and artworks.
Close
Welcome back to Ocula
Enter your email address and password below to login.
Reset Password
Enter your email address to receive a password reset link.
Reset Link Sent
We have sent you an email containing a link to reset your password. Simply click the link and enter your new password to complete this process.
Login