John pfahl biography

Biography.
Life.
John came to Western New York to study graphic design (BA) then photography (MFA) at Syracuse University.

•

John Pfahl (1939 – 2020)

It is with great sadness that I heard about John Pfahl’s recent departure (April 15, 2020), a victim of several ailments and COVID-19.

I met John Pfahl for the first time at his Buffalo home in the Fall of 1996. My conversation with him was part of my research on American contemporary landscape photography. We spent most of the day discussing ideas and looking at his photographs. He was always very supportive of my efforts. I always enjoyed his cool humorous smile, an attitude toward life and humanity that he often expressed in his photography.

John came to Western New York to study graphic design (BA) then photography (MFA) at Syracuse University. As soon as he graduated in 1968 from what was then the first graduate program in color photography, he was immediately recruited by the Rochester Institute of Technology where he would teach until 1982. After a few years of a personal sabbatical to focus on his fine-art photography, he would resume teaching as a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico and then at SUNY Buffalo. He still used

•

John Pfahl | American, 1939 -

John Pfahl studied art at Syracuse University, receiving a B.F.A. in 1961 and a M.A. from the School of Communications of the same university in 1968. His position in photography has been one of both a celebrated artist and an important educator. Pfahl taught photography for over decade at the Rochester Institute of Technology, educating many now important contemporary photographers and has served as a longtime adjunct professor in the Visual Studies department of the University of Buffalo. In 2009, he was the Honored Educator of the Year by the Society for Photographic Education. Other honors include two National Endowment for the Arts, Photographer’s Fellowships.

Pfahl’s working process tends to involve the creation of a series of images that combine the conceptual and the perceptual with the intention to comprehend our interventions with the landscape of the natural world.

His work is in numerous prominent collections, including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museu

•

John Pfahl

American photographer (1939–2020)

John Pfahl (February 17, 1939 – April 15, 2020) was an American photographer.^[1]

Life

Pfahl was born in New York City and grew up in Wanaque, New Jersey.^[2] He is known for his landscape photography such as his 1974 "Altered Landscapes" series. He received a BFA from Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts and his MA from Syracuse University's S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, from 1968 to 1983. Later he was professor at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. In 2012 he taught at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

Pfahl died from COVID-19 on April 15, 2020, in Buffalo, New York during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.^[1]^[3]

Publications

A Distanced Land – The Photographs of John Pfahl. Buffalo: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy/Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8263-1214-4.