Galassi, Peter, and Luc Sante.American Photography 1890–
1965 from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. New
York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1997.
Harrison, Martin.In & Out of FashionLondon: Jonathan
Cape, and New York: Random House, 1994.
Heilpern, John.William Klein: Photographs, etc. New York:
Aperture, 1981.
Jenkins, Bruce, and Jonathan Rosenbaum.The Films of
William Klein. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1988.
Jouffroy, Alain.New York 54–55, Paris: JM Bustamante,
and Bernard Saint-Ge`nes, 1978.
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Livingston, Jane.The New York School: Photographs, 1936–
1963. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1992.
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Phillips, Sandra S.Life is Good & Good for You in New
York: Trance Witness Revels/William Klein. San Fran-
cisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, 1995.MARK KLETT
American
Mark Klett is among the most accomplished land-
scape photographers in the ranks of twentieth century
American photography. His unique photographs
incorporate elements of a nineteenth century tradi-
tion, while critically examining many of the twentieth
century’s most poignant environmental concerns.
Throughout his work, Mark Klett focuses on the
experience of contemporary travelers in the American
West, while demonstrating how that experience dif-
fers from the mythologized histories of this same land.
Klett is an educator, artist, and historian who has
influenced a generation of photographers and in-
spired a new sensibility for those interested in land-
scape and culture.
Klett’s introduction to photography began with
an early interest in science. In 1974, he received a
B.S. in geology from St. Lawrence University in
Canton, New York. After graduating he studied
photography with Nathan Lyons at the Visual
Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, re-
ceiving his M.F.A. in 1977. During graduate
school Klett spent summers working for the Uni-
ted States Geological Survey (USGS) in Wyoming
and Montana. This combination of experiences
would prove to be a seminal period that would
define his mature work as an artist.
Upon completing graduate school, Klett helped to
organize the Rephotographic Survey Project (RSP),
a project in which a series of nineteenth century
photographs of the American West were rephoto-
graphed by a team of artists. Supported by an
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant, he
worked with Gordon Bushaw, Rick Dingus, JoAnn
Verburg, and the art historian Ellen Manchester to
document over 100 sites that were previously photo-
graphed by photographers such as Timothy O’Sulli-
van and William Henry Jackson, who traveled with
nineteenth-century explorers and surveyors. The
work of the RSP photographers was published as
Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project
(1982). This project had a significant impact on
Klett’s work as an emerging artist, teaching him to
carefully consider the boundaries between science
and art, past and present, and to successfully inte-
grate these concerns into his photographs.
When Klett’s work with the RSP was nearly
complete, he took a position with the Sun Valley
Center for the Arts and Humanities in Sun Valley,
Idaho. This position meant that Mark Klett would
now settle in an area where he was most at home,
making the move to Idaho in 1978. His work
began to look at a personal experience with the
western landscape, allowing the beauty and aus-
terity of nineteenth century photography to in-
form his new photographs. His photographs
from this period are diaristic in their style and
mark the beginning of hand-written text on the
face of each print. Since 1979, Klett has used a
Polaroid material to produce his photographs.
This material, Type 55 P/N film, was crucial to
the exacting work of the RSP photographers for
its ability to produce both a positive and a nega-
tive without the use of traditional developing
agents. It became an integral part of Klett’s
work, acting as both a practical and stylistic ele-
ment to his photographs.KLEIN, WILLIAM