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Richard Misrach

American

b. 1949

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  1. Desert Croquet #1 Deflated World, from the Series "Desert Cantos VIII: The Event II" by Richard Misrach, Image 1.

    Richard Misrach

    Desert Croquet #1 Deflated World, from the Series "Desert Cantos VIII: The Event II", 1987, printed 2023

    Archival pigment print/CP

    20 x 24 in (50.8 x 60.96 cm)

Richard Misrach is an American artist known for his large-format landscape photographs of iconic American places like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Mississippi River, and the U.S.-Mexico border. In his ongoing Desert Cantos series, Misrach explores his interest in the deserts of the American Southwest. “It does seem that the severity of the landscape sets cultural artifacts off in dramatic relief,” he said of the region. “The desert has always provided rich material for literature and the visual arts, from the Bible to science-fiction films, probably because it epitomizes the extremes of the human condition.” Born on July 11, 1949 in Los Angeles, CA, he graduated with a BA in psychology from the University of California in 1971. Often honing in on environmentalist concerns, Misrach sometimes captures the negative effects that humans have had on nature. His mid-career retrospective, “Crimes and Splendors: The Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach,” was mounted by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in 1996. He currently lives and works in Berkeley, CA. The artist’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.