1. Landscape Photographer
Lewis Baltz
Landscape Photographer

2. Biography Born on September 12, 1945 in Newport Beach, California.
BA in Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institution.
Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate School.

3. Childhood He moved from California to Paris.
The only child of a couple who owned a mortuary business.
His father, who was also Newport Beach’s deputy coroner, was an alcoholic who died of cirrhosis of the liver when Baltz was 11.
At the age of 14 he started working at a camera store and the photographer William Current took him under his wing and gave him books, advice and a view of the wider world of art beyond the conservative oceanside towns of Southern California.

4. Photography
His formally black-and-white images of parking lots, office parks, industrial garage doors and the backs of anonymous warehouses helped forge a new tradition of American landscape photography in an age of urban sprawl.
In an interview in 1992, he said: “Coming from Orange County, I watched the ghastly transformation of this place — the first wave of bulimic capitalism sweeping across the land, next door to me. I sensed that there was something horribly amiss and awry about my own personal environment.”

5. Tract House no. 1, 1971
From the series The Tract Houses
gelatin silver print
6 x 9 inch / 14 x 22 cm

6. Fairfax, 1973
From the series The Prototype Works
vintage gelatin silver print
8 x 10 inch / 20 x 25.2 cm

7. Santa Fe, 1973
From the series The Prototype Works
vintage gelatin silver print
8 x 10 inch / 20 x 25.2 cm

8. Tract House no. 4, 1971
From the series The Tract Houses
gelatin silver print
6 x 9 inch / 14.7 x 22.3 cm

9. Anechoic Chamber, France Telecom Laboratories, Lannion, France
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

10. Santa Cruz B, 1970
From the series The Prototype Works
gelatin silver print

11. Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, Geneva, Switzerland, 1989 - 1991
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
57 x 43 inch / 144 x 108 cm

12. Tract House no. 14, 1971
From the series The Tract Houses
gelatin silver print
6 x 9 inch / 13.9 x 21.5 cm

13. Channel Tunnel, Pas-de-Calais, France
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

14. Cooling Tank,
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

15. Unoccupied office, Mitsubishi, Vitre (FR), 1989 - 1992
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

16. France Télécom Laboratories, Nice, 1989 - 1992
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

17. National Centre for Meteorological Research, Grenoble, 1989 - 1992
From the series Sites of Technology
c-print, diasec
43 x 57 inch / 108 x 144 cm

18. Orange County, 1970
From the series The Prototype Works
vintage gelatin silver print
6 x 8 inch / 13.5 x 21.3 cm

19. References
Photographs from
Information from
Other photographs from