Since his inclusion in the 2004 Whitney and São Paulo Biennials, which coincided with the publication of his widely influential first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, Alec Soth has stood out as a vibrant and distinctive voice in contemporary photography. His iconic large-format color photographs of people and scenes from middle America were met with immediate critical acclaim. Rooted firmly in the narrative framework of traditional photographic expression, Soth has continued to push the boundaries of the medium through his long-term projects and his prolific book-publishing activities.
Alec Soth was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is currently based. His photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the Jeu de Paume in Paris and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland in 2008. In 2010, the Walker Art Center produced a large survey of Soth’s work entitled From Here To There.
In addition to Sleeping by the Mississippi (Steidl, 2004), Soth has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating (2019), and most recently, A Pound of Pictures (2022). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). In 2008, Soth started Little Brown Mushroom, an independent publishing company devoted to small-run artist books. In 2021, as part of a collaboration with jazz drummer Dave King, Soth began appearing as The Palms, in performances that combine music and photographs. Soth is also a member of Magnum Photos.
His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
