Artist Career Resume

*Education

  • Master of Arts — Photographic Arts: on a teaching fellowship provided by Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
  • Bachelor of Science — Journalism: photojournalism, news editorial, magazine layout and production. William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University Of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.

Smith’s photographs and their commentaries are powerful and dramatic. Smith’s created a terrific piece of work with remarkable people in remarkable places.
— Virginia Mecklenburg,  Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture: Smithsonian National Museum of American Art

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*Collections

  • Kenneth Spencer Research Library: (nearly 3000 images from throughout the artist’s career) The Gary Mark Smith Collection at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, part of The Kansas Collection. Also a major depository and archive of the artists negatives, research material, books and articles about and by, as well as some of his personal effects.
  • Art Institute of Chicago: 10 images from the Favela da Rocinha, Brazil book project inducted into the permanent archive of the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
  • New Orleans Museum of Art: Eight images from the Streets of the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Flood of New Orleans portfolio.
  • Oklahoma City Museum of Art: 40 artworks (images & grids) from the Lifetime Global Street Photography portfolio.
  • The Montserrat National Trust — West Indies: 45 images from the Holdout Streets of the Montserrat Volcano Disaster and the Lifetime Global Street Photography portfolios.
  • The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas: 12 images from the Streetphotos in Time series.
  • Watkins Museum of History — Lawrence/Douglas County: 110 artworks (images & grids), the Covid-19/LFK-20 Coronavirus Lockdown Exhibition
  • Eutin (Germany) Municipal Art Collection: Three images collected as part of the inaugural Lawrence, Kansas – Eutin, Germany Sister City union.
  • Jatari Campesino (Ecuador) Minga Archive: 25 images from the Streets of the Impoverished High Andes portfolio.

 

Nearly all (his) images are sympathetic toward their subjects, foregoing the aggressiveness and social satire of street photographer Garry Winogrand’s oeuvre.  Whereas Winogrand remained an outsider on the street, Smith seems to resonate with the energy of the crowd (and) empathize with his subjects.
— James R. Hugunin, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

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*Books

  • Travelogueing the Dark Side (2018)  
    Gatecrashing History | Brainstorming Access | Engineering Art out of Circumstance: The ExtremeOphile Field Notes of a One-of-a-Kind Lifetime Art Project; Photographing the Poetry of Everyday Life on the Streets of the Civilized World’s Most Frightening Discomfort Zones.
  • Goma (2016). By Gary Mark Smith. The Poetry of Everyday Life on the Streets of the Most Miserable Place on Earth: Inside the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • Favela da Rocinha, Brazil (2012). By Sarah Stern and Gary Mark Smith; foreword by James R. Hugunin. The Poetry of Everyday Life Inside the Largest Gang Occupied Favela in Rio de Janeiro Just Prior to Pacification and on the Cusp of Brazil’s Emergence as a World Economic Giant and of Rio’s Hosting of the World Cup of Futbol in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016.
  • The Road to Hell: Making Heaven Out of Third Class Travel (2009). In collaboration with author Janet M. Cinelli. A comprehensively field-tested travel guide about how to learn to travel internationally for an entire lifetime. (27 global street photographs and the foreword; Travel Par).
  • White With Foam: Essays, Rumors, Field Notes, and Photographs from the Edge of World War III (September 10, 2001 to September 12, 2002). Published as an online book December 2007 and as a Kindle Edition June 2009.
  • Searching For Washington Square (2001). A collection of 145 early works – 1978-1998. Published by the Traver Foundation.
  • Molten Memoirs: Essays, Rumors, Field Notes and Photographs From The Edge of Fury (1999, 2000, 2001, 2009). An Artist’s Account of the Volcano Holdouts of Salem, Montserrat. Issued on tape for the sight impaired in 2001 by Audio Reader; 2009 issued as a Kindle Edition.