Mark
Chester has been a professional photographer
since 1972. He was Director of Photography and staff photographer
at ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers),
in New York City, prior to relocating to California in 1975.
His photographs and/or feature stories have been published
in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles
Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner, Christian
Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star,
Denver Post, Prime Time Magazine (Cape Cod Times), among others.
Chester created, produced and photographed the book, No
In America (Taylor, 1986), a collection of tongue-in-cheek
photographs of “no” signs. Previously, he photographed Charles
Kuralt’s book,
Dateline America (HBJ, 1979). His latest book, Twosomes is
forthcoming.
In 1987, Chester created and produced the traveling exhibition
and catalog, Shanghai: In Black and White, in commemoration
of San Francisco’s “sister city”, as part of the San Francisco-Shanghai
Cultural Exchange Program. The photographs were displayed
at the San Francisco Main Library, the Museum of Art, Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, The Kogod Arts Center of the Sidwell Friends
School, Washington, D.C. and other venues.
Chester’s photographs are in permanent museum collections,
including Baltimore, Brooklyn, Corcoran, Denver, Portland (Maine),
San Francisco, and other institutions. His images have been
exhibited nationwide in galleries, including O.K. Harris (NYC),
Camera Obscura (CO), and San Francisco Airport and in galleries
in Japan, Vietnam, London and alternative exhibition space.
Born in Baltimore, Chester grew up in Massachusetts and graduated
from the University of Arizona (1967) with a Bachelor of Arts
degree. He is a member of the Copley Society of Art, Boston.
A former Adjunct Instructor at Cape Cod Community College,
and photography instructor at the Falmouth Artists Guild and
Cape Cod Art Association and Lesley University Seminars, Chester
contributes the column, In My Mind’s Eye to the Community Newspaper
Company on Cape Cod, including the Falmouth Bulletin.
“Twosomes is an amazing
book that could only have been created out of a lifetime
of travel and observation by an indefatigable and watchful
photographer: In this juxtaposition of matching moods and
paraphernalia, Mark Chester shows us in an ingenious way
how the world is related and how we matter to each other.
I must add he succeeds in this with tremendous humanity
and humor.”
— Paul Theroux, novelist, travel writer
August 18 - October 11, 2011: Exhibit at the Museum of Photography,
Reykjavik, Iceland
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