ROBERT DAWSON has long been interested in how photography can be used to understand our relationship with the environment and the commons. He is also interested in photography’s ability to shape public awareness and understanding of the place we call home.
Dawson was awarded the 2018-2019 Fulbright Global Scholar award by the U.S. Department of State. Dawson's photographs have also been recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, an Artists Grant from the Graham Foundation and an Artists Grant from the Creative Work Fund. He has received grants from the National Endowment For the Arts, a Photographer's Work Grant from the Maine Photographic Workshops, and a Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from the Center For Documentary Studies at Duke University. He served as a Panelist for the Visual Arts Fellowship in Photography for the National Endowment For the Arts in Washingto, D.C.
Mr. Dawson's photographs have been widely exhibited and are in the permanent collections of many institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of American Art, (Smithsonian Institution) Washington, DC; the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Center For Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
His first book, Robert Dawson Photographs was published by Min Gallery in Japan (1988). The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland by Robert Dawson, Steve Johnson and Gerald Haslam was published by the University of California Press (1993) and was listed as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. An exhibit sponsored by the California Academy of Sciences toured the state for three years.
Other projects include the Farewell, Promised Land Project with Gray Brechin. The book Farewell, Promised Land: Waking From the California Dream was published by the University of California Press (1999) in conjunction with a large exhibit at the Oakland Museum. This exhibit traveled throughout California for six years and was sponsored by the California Council For the Humanities. The Pyramid Lake Project with Peter Goin and Mary Webb produced the book A Doubtful River which was published by the University of Nevada Press (2000). Dawson, along with his wife Ellen Manchester, was founder and co-director of the Water in the West Project, a large-scale collaboration with several other photographers. His work, along with others' from the project, was published in Arid Waters: Photographs From the Water in the West Project published by the University of Nevada Press (1992). A large body of work from all the project members was collected by The Center For Creative Photography in Tucson as a permanent archive of the Water in the West Project.
Dawson's book The Public Library: A Photographic Essay was published by Princeton Architectural Press (2014). This was a culmination of an eighteen-year photographic survey of the essential role of public libraries thoughout the United States. The book includes a forward by Bill Moyers, an afterword by Ann Patchett and an endorsement by Toni Morrison. The book contains fifteen essays by writers such as Amy Tan, Anne Lamott, Charles Simic, Barbara Kingsolver, Philip Levine, etc. In 2015, the Library of Congress purchased the entire Public Library project archive for their permanent collection.
Two large-scale limited edition photographic albums have been produced by Dawson and Ellen Manchester and published by Marquand Editions. Public Library: An American Commons came out in 2019 and The Global Library: A Photographic Project was produced in 2022. The Library of Congress purchased the entire Global Library Project for their permanent collection in two groups in 2022 and again in 2024.
Mr. Dawson was born in Sacramento, California in 1950. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1972 and his M.A. from San Francisco State University in 1979. Dawson served as a member of the Board of Directors of San Francisco Camerawork and later of the Friends of Photography. He is a founding member and served on the Board of PhotoAlliance from 2002 to 2019. He was an Instructor of Photography at San Jose State University from 1986 to 2014. He recently retired from being an Instructor of Photography at Stanford University after teaching there from 1996 to 2018. He received the Honored Educator Faculty Merit Award by the Society of Photographic Education West in 2017.
To contact Robert Dawson please email landscape@igc.org.
To purchase or ask questions about Robert Dawson's work please contact Scott Nichols Gallery at info@scottnicholsgallery.com.