Mark Swope, Los Angeles Fine Arts Photographer, Dies at 63
Mark Swope, who engaged a straightforward documentary style of photography to capture unromanticized portraits of stark industrial landscapes and suburban sprawl, died on December 19, 2016 in Santa Monica. He was 63.
Swope was born in Los Angeles on May 14, 1953 to photographer John Swope and actress Dorothy McGuire. His father photographed for Life magazine. His mother was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1947 for Gentleman’s Agreement.
Swope attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles and earned his Master of Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institute. A lifelong resident of Los Angeles, he started his career as a sculptor and painter. Long interested in photography, he exchanged paint brushes for a camera and began documenting his home city.
His decades-long photographic exploration ranged from the Los Angeles River to the Cornfield to downtown rooftop sign structures to far-flung neighborhoods. His keen eye for composition and disciplined printing earned his work a place in galleries, museums, private collections, and books.
“Mark Swope’s photographs are grounded in the aesthetic and theoretical approach of the New Topographic photographers, such as Henry Wessel Jr., Joe Deal and especially, Robert Adams,” said his long-time gallerist, Craig Krull.
Reviewing an exhibition of Swope’s photographs of the Los Angeles River in 2010, art critic Leah Ollman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “In the large, black and white pictures, Swope assumes a straightforward stance. Each view is crisp, neatly organized, dense with information. There are no theatrics at work in terms of lighting or composition, but that doesn’t make the images neutral, only less overt in their revelations of tragedy.”
In a 2012 Los Angeles Times review, art critic Sharon Mizota called Swope’s ‘Foliage’ series “a humorous, sometimes startling glimpse into the hidden life of domestic shrubbery.” She added, “In image after image, Swope finds moments of fantasy embedded in everyday suburban landscapes: geometric topiary gone rogue, hulking ivy monsters gingerly spreading their skirts across the sidewalk or tangles of branches as blustery as a Turner landscape.”
Other exhibitions of Swope’s work include a group show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2013 (Little Boxes: Photography and the Suburbs). He continued to pursue his art despite a diagnosis of cancer in 2015. Recently, his photographs were exhibited at the Craig Krull Gallery (Between), South Pasadena Arts Council (Stand Alone), Fresno Art Museum (Urban California), and Paris Photo Los Angeles (Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles).
Mark Swope is survived by his wife, fine arts photographer Jasmine Swope, stepdaughters Jenny and Suzy Grozdich, and sister, actress and talent agent Topo Swope.