STEVE SZABO

from the series
ICONS OF THE GREAT PLAINS

In remote areas of the Great Plains of Nebraska, cowboys place their worn-out boots up-side-down on fenceposts.

Left there through harsh winters and hot summers, the boots are transformed into another life. For over two years, between 1990 and 1991, Steve Szabo traveled to Nebraska in search of boots on fenceposts.

Ultimately, he exposed nearly 400 negatives and selected to print approximately 50 images he believed represented the best of his work.

This series explores these classic Western American "icons" as pieces of sculpture and objects of folk art.

The photographs were printed during Steve Szabo's lifetime, by himself or under his direct supervision.

After his death in the year 2000, no additional prints have been made from the negatives.

STEVE SZABO
Professional Background

In 1971, after 10 years as an award-winning photojournalist with The Washington Post, Steve Szabo took a six month leave of absence, packed his VW beetle and moved into a 19th century farmhouse in Somerset County, the most remote and most economically depressed area on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Having recently seen an exhibit of platinum photographs by the English pictorialist Frederick Evans, Szabo was inspired to explore the potential of the view camera and platinum printing.

Initially, Steve Szabo was drawn to Maryland's tidewater to document the slowly vanishing fleet of skipjacks, America's only workboat powered by wind and sail. Once he settled on the Eastern Shore, the project expanded beyond the sailboats and he began to explore all the back roads of the county, photographically documenting fields, barns, abandoned cars and buildings. The tradition of documenting the land has remained a consistent aspect of Szabo's work ever since he began the Eastern Shore series.

When the six months were up, Szabo resigned from The Post and, for another two years, continued to document the back roads and marshes of Somerset County. The result was his book, The Eastern Shore, and an exhibition of platinum photographs which traveled to fifteen different museums and galleries between 1976 and 1979.

After leaving the Eastern Shore, Steve Szabo continued to produce numerous photographic series in Washington, D.C., Maine, France, Hungary, and Hawaii. From 1990 to 1992, he worked extensively on a series of cowboy's boots on fenceposts on the Plains of Nebraska. He also maintained a full-time schedule of teaching photography at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C.

In the fall of 1992, Steve Szabo was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a progressive disease which impaired his ability to continue his travels to Nebraska. However, working with his darkroom assistant, Stuart Diekmeyer, he has continued printing his negatives in a manner consistent with his impression of the boots as he found them on the Plains. The photographs are intended to portray the Boots of Nebraska as sculptural symbols of the Great American West and the pioneering spirit of survival in a region where nature is supreme.

In the fall of 1994, Szabo retired on disability from teaching at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, his photographic career continued: examining 25 years of negatives and turning his bedroom into a portrait studio. After a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis, Steve Szabo passed away quietly at home on May 18, 2000.

Steve Szabo's photography continues to be represented by the Kathleen Ewing Gallery in Washington, DC.