Photo by Jon Pownall Art Sinsabaugh on the balcony of Marina City, 1964 City scapes by Art Sinsabaugh

“The photos were spread out, and I just walked around looking at them. It was, perhaps, the first time that black-and-white photos reminded me so much of paintings…The comparison to painting just jumped out at me,” said Herbert during an interview at Bryan House, the Bloomington residence she shares with her husband, IU President Adam Herbert.

While the Herberts were still getting settled in at Bryan House, Heidi Gealt, director of the IU Art Museum, shared with the couple the museum’s plans to launch a Sinsabaugh retrospective.

After nearly 30 years of preparing the now-deceased photographer’s work and archival material, the museum director and her staff were nearing completion of the exhibit, American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh and its accompanying catalog.

And now, just a month after the exhibit has opened at the Art Institute of Chicago, Karen Herbert is hoping a wider audience will find the same exhilaration.

“The Chicago photo alone piqued my interest. When Heidi (Gealt) invited me over, I was bouncing off the wall,” said Herbert, referring to one of the many signature cityscape photographs featured in the collection.

Like Herbert, Gealt believes the touring exhibition—and its high-profile launch at the Art Institute—will foster new admiration for Sinsabaugh’s contribution to photography. (One Chicago critic, after viewing the retrospective, declared Sinsabaugh “among the top photographers of his generation.”)

“I would have to say that we hit it out of the park,” said Gealt during a joint interview with Karen Herbert, adding that the show opened in Chicago not only because the city is a prominent fixture in Sinsabaugh’s work, but also because the Windy City has one of the largest contingents of IU alums. “Karen and Dr. Herbert were at the opening, along with close to 200 others. It was a great moment for IU.”

Gealt credits her predecessor, Thomas Solley, with recognizing Sinsabaugh’s talent, noting that the collection originated with a suite of panoramas Solley purchased. Solley’s foresight led the museum to purchase the photographer’s archives.

“I have worked at the IU Art Museum since 1972 , and this is truly a unique moment in our history,” Gealt said.

Holding the exhibition catalog, Herbert offered her favorite Sinsabaugh image—a snow scene.

“I like the repetition of lines. See the zigzag? From the horizon, to the fence, to the roadway, that pattern keeps going. I think it’s incredible that he saw all that,” she said.

Gealt, who had presented Herbert with the catalog just prior to the IU Home Pages interview, noted that Herbert’s choice was revelatory.

“That one says something about you: it has people in it. He didn’t do many with people.”

Discovering Sinsabaugh’s photography

Throughout his career, Art Sinsabaugh was drawn to Midwestern farmland and prairie, the urban cityscapes of Chicago and Baltimore, the mountains and resorts of New England and the barren deserts of the Southwest. He liked to focus on buildings, silos, bridges, highways, homes, skyscrapers, trees and gravestones. 

Before his death in 1983, Sinsabaugh had achieved national renown and respect as a photographer and, ultimately, won nine important awards for his work.

American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh is accompanied

by a 168-page catalog, which includes 85 full-page illustrations and more than 30 additional color illustrations. The catalog contains an introduction written by renowned photography historian and guest curator Keith Davis, fine art programs director for Hallmark Cards, Inc., which owns one of the premier fine arts photography collections in the world.  The catalog also features an archive summary and text written by Nan Brewer, the Lucienne M. Glaubinger Curator of works on paper at the IU Art Museum.   

The Sinsabaugh archive at the IU Art Museum includes more than 3,000 photographs, the artist’s negatives, master slides and papers.

'American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh'

• Now through Jan. 5, Art Institute of Chicago
• Feb. 11-April 17, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
• June 3-Aug. 7, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois
• Oct. 1-Dec. 23, IU Art Museum, Bloomington
• Visit the Sinsabaugh archive online at:

http://www.indiana.edu/~iuam/online_modules/sinsabaugh/a_main.html