Mike Smith

Born in Germany, Mike Smith received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and his MFA from Yale University School of Art. He has been a Professor of Photography at East Tennessee State University since 1981. He photographs the land, the built environment and the people of Southern Appalachia. His color photography explores the unique beauty of the region and the people who call it home. His earlier work in the region focused on old Appalachia and photographing gas stations and convenience stores where the New South intersects with the old Appalachia. Smith’s photography is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Asheville Art Museum. He was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and was a 2000 finalist for the Alfred Eisenstadt Award for Magazine Photography. In 2004, the Center for American Places published a book of Smith’s images "You’re Not from Around Here: Photographs of East Tennessee" by Mike Smith. (source: museum staff)