Personifying the liberal arts, Mark Klett ’74 majored in geology and has made a career of photography.  Combining artistic sensibility and creativity with scientific training and curiosity has made Klett a leading contemporary voice about the relationship between the human condition and the Earth’s condition.

Best known as a landscape photographer, Klett was the first geology major at St. Lawrence to prepare a senior thesis; his topic was “On the Confluence of Science and Art.” After graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors, he worked in geologic mapping while earning his Master of Fine Arts degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo and launching his career in the arts.

His first book, Second View: Rephotographic Survey Project, examined the sights, techniques and artistic intentions of early landscape photographers of the American West, and brought Klett national acclaim. Critics have recognized Klett’s sense of landscape, informed by his knowledge of geologic origins and of historical photography. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others, and is the author or co-author of 13 books.

Klett is not satisfied with merely creating art; he holds the prestigious position of Regents Professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger School of Art.  His colleagues describe his teaching as “infectious with enthusiasm, inspiring, exciting, rigorous and uncompromising.” 

--Lauren Reed ’11