Frank Gohlke

Frank Gohlke (b. 1942) was raised in Wichita Falls, Texas. He received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin in 1964 and an M.A. in English Literature from Yale University in 1966. While at Yale, Gohlke met photographer Walker Evans, and in 1967 and 1968 he studied with the landscape photographer Paul Caponigro.

Between 1971 and 1987, Gohlke made his home in Minneapolis, and has resided since in Southborough, Massachusetts. He has taught photography at Middlebury College; Colorado College; Yale University; and the Massachusetts College of Art.

Gohlke is the recipient of two Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, a Fulbright Scholar Grant, and two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as grants from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Gund Foundation. He has also received commissions from the Wichita County Heritage Society and the Texas Historical Foundation. Monographs include Landscapes from the Middle of the World: Photographs 1972 – 1987 (1988); Measure of Emptiness: Grain Elevators in the American Landscape (1992); The Sudbury River: A Celebration (1993); and Mount St. Helens (2005).

Gohlke′s photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; the Amon Carter Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 1975, he was included in the influential exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape, organized by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House; the Canadian Center for Architecture; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Amon Carter Museum; and the Walker Art Center.