theo anderson

my story

I graduated from Temple University with a BA in Political Science and discovered photography while working on a Doctorate of Arts in government at Lehigh University. Self taught, my early work was black and white street photography. Based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, I became a leading practitioner of photographing technology, industry and business, for clients such as: AT&T, PP&L, IBM, Hershey, MBIA, Tyco, Guardian, Air Products and numerous others. In addition to the studio, my work took me to locations throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, Asia and Central America. My existing photography was licensed thru The Image Bank and later Getty.

Over the last twenty years the emphasis of my work has been my own projects and reportage for ethically based corporations, non-profits and magazines. I have photographed a private audience with His Holiness the Dali Lama and Haitian orphans living in the Dominican Republic. I’ve worked on editorial projects for university magazines, The Atlantic, Scientific American and others. I’ve photographed the famous like Elie Wiesel and the endangered like the Dreamers. My work has been used on the cover of Geoff Dyer’s book White Sands and to tell stories of amazing human beings like Alice Gast.

In 2004 I started to photograph in the context of the shuttered Bethlehem Works of the former Bethlehem Steel Corporation. I shared early prints with Ricardo Viera, curator at Lehigh University. His response, “this is brilliant, you must pursue this!” I spent the next three years working on this project, photographing, editing and honing my skills as a printer. Lehigh University held five exhibitions of the work. Four hundred and sixty-four prints are part of Lehigh’s permanent collection.

At roughly the same time, I started to photograph everyday America. Fascinated by the possibilities of color and visual structure, I democratically photographed; back alleys, deserts, city and towns. Groups of photographs that informed my life became episodes, the catalyst for my books and portfolios. In early 2010 I started to explore handmade books and publications. I was intrigued with the three dimensional nature of the form and how I might present my work without compromise. Using the moniker, Wilbureditions, I released my first handmade artist book, GUN CRIMES, in 2012. Over the next five years I would release 16 handmade books, printed, designed and bound by my hands.

My 2011 exhibition Cowboy, featuring thirty-two large scale photographs, curated by Edward Nowak, took place at the Banana Factory Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a key component of the InVision festival.

In 2013 I started my sixteen month journey photographing the construction of a hockey arena in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The work is expressed in CONCRETE, eight handmade books with case, featuring one hundred and thirty-one photographs. The book and large scale photographs were exhibited at the Allentown Museum of Art in 2014 - 2015.

In 2013, Lafayette College hosted an exhibition of eighteen large scale prints, Pennsylvania, curated by Michiko Okaya. In his essay for the exhibition, Stephen Perloff wrote, “What Anderson often photographs, including these 18 images especially, fall under the rubric of the American social landscape. It is not the soaring beauty of the pristine natural landscape captured by Ansel Adams or the gritty street photographs of Robert Frank or Garry Winogrand, but if you take a pinch of the homespun, formal rigor of Walker Evans and a dash of the visual complexity of some of Lee Friedlander’s early work and stir in a heaping spoonful of the subtle colorism of Joel Meyerowitz or William Eggleston, you can tease out some of the subtle flavors of Anderson’s work, blended by a master visual chef into a new and heartily delicious visual dish. This is not to imply that Anderson’s work is in any way derivative. As photographers, we are influenced both positively and negatively by the image-makers who have come before us. And to me, Theo Anderson is a rare original.”

In early 2013, Lehigh University’s President Dr. Alice Gast asked if I would consider photographing Building B and C of the Homer Research Labs of the shuttered Bethlehem Steel Corporation. I shared roughly one-hundred prints with Dr. Gast in her office at Lehigh. She said little but sent an email hours later, “I look at things differently now - thank you.” The resulting photographs were exhibited at Lehigh in late 2014 and featured a talk and discussion between myself and Dr. Gast. Two handmade editions were made to give as gifts to major donors.

While working this project I realized the new photographs were connected to my earlier work at the Bethlehem Steel plant. The new photographs combined with what I had done a decade earlier provided closure and brought the project full circle. The work is realized in ULISSE, a boxed, 5 volume, commercially printed artist book set which was released in 2016.

In 2015 I spent nine months photographing in the context of Allentown, Pennsylvania for inclusion in the Allentown X7: Photographic Explorations exhibition at the Allentown Art Museum. Ten large scale photographs were exhibited at the museum. My photograph, stars, is the cover photograph of the Allentown X7 monograph.

Pecker, a commercially printed artist book, published in 2016 was selected as one of the top 100 books for the second triennial Juried Exhibition of Self-Published Photobooks at the Phoenix Art Museum and was exhibited at the Doris and John Norton Gallery of the Center for Creative Photography through April of 2017.

I started to explore Japanese stab binding, resulting in a unique series of books based on my American episodes. As I was continuing to work in color, I started to realize that I may have taken it as far as I could. A vintage black and white photograph from my first exhibition, seemed to be calling me in a different direction.

My 2020 exhibition, The Great Lakes Landscape, was curated by William Earle Williams at Haverford College. It opened shortly before the start of the pandemic. It was a privilege to have Mr. Williams present my work.

In April 2020 my studio was destroyed. The pandemic and the loss of my archive afforded me an opportunity to understand what I’ve been doing. Although my prints were, for the most part destroyed, I’m thankful that the digital negatives of my work since 2004 were intact, along with numerous negatives and transparencies. I was allowed to intimately encounter my work, go through the process of rebuilding my archive. To understand what I’ve done and what I might do. Where I’ve been and where I might be going. I felt renewed, reborn as a photographer. I was able to view a digital contact sheet spanning two decades. My archive is rebuilt as I move forward.

I find myself awake, along the crack asphalt of life. I don’t have the answers, but sometimes it just is.

(snafu)

artists’ books (multiple volume works)

(snafu), 2025
Curveball, 2019
Concrete, 2014

artists’ books (2021 — 2022)

A work of fifty-two stab bound artists’ books , one unique copy retained by the studio.

artists’ books (2012 -2019)

Pecker, Wilbureditions, 2016
Ulisse, Wilbureditions, 2016
Pontiac, Wilbureditions, 2016
Iowa, Wilbureditions, 2016
Catholics, Wilburedtions, 2015
Show Girls, Wilbureditions, 2015
Swing Set, Wilbureditions, 2015
Concrete, Wilbureditions, 2014
Peterbilt, Wilbureditions, 2014
Last Date wilbureditions 2014
Transformation, Wilbureditions, 2014
Exploration, Wilbureditions, 2014
Lions, Tigers & Bears, Wilbureditions, 2014
Arbus, Wilbureditions, 2013
Pennsylvania Wilbureditions, 2013
Snafu, Wilburedtions, 2013
Coca-Cola, Wilbureditions, 2012
White Sands, Wilbureditions, 2012
Motor Hotel, Wilbureditions, 2012
Gun Crimes, Wilbureditions, 2012

books

ALLENTOWN X7. Allentown Art Museum, 2017.
Pecker, Wilbureditions 2016
Ulisse, WIlbureditions (boxed set), 2016
NEW YORK: A PHOTOGRAPHERS CITY, edited Marla Hamburg Kennedy / Rusolli New York, 2011.

portfolios

Giant, Wilbureditions, 2017

portfolios — archive

Forty-eight portfolios made from 2021 - 2022 represent my rebuilt archive following the destruction of my studio in 2020.

solo exhibitions

Haverford College (Haverford, PA) 2020
Alvernia University (Reading, PA) 2016
Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts (Bethlehem, PA) 2015
Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley (Allentown, PA) 2014
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2014
Alvernia University (Reading, PA) 2013
Lafayette College (Easton, PA) 2013
LVPA (Bethlehem, PA) 2012
Penn State Lehigh Valley (Center Valley, PA) 2012
ArtsQuest - Banana Factory (Bethlehem, PA) 2011
The Gallery at The State Theatre (Easton, PA) 2011
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2007
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2006
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2006
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2005
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2005

group exhibitions

The Paula Tognarelli Collection.MMPA (Portland, ME) 2024
New American Galleries, Allentown Art Museum (Allentown, PA) 2023
Fractured; Being and Beings, Goodyear Gallery, Dickinson College, (Carlisle, PA) 2019
Art is Changing, The Art Lab, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University (Lansing, MI) 2018
Artist Book Fair, Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States (Washington, DC) 2018
A Survey of Color Photography from it’s Prehistory to the Present Day, Haverford College (Haverford, PA) 2018
Photographs Are Ideas, Lehigh University Art Galleries (Bethlehem, PA) 2018
INFOCUS Juried Exhibition of Self-Published Photobooks, Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix, AZ) 2017
Allentown x 7: Photographic Explorations, Allentown Art Museum (Allentown, PA) 2017
Object as Subject: The Lehigh University Art Galleries Teaching Collections, Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2015
Revisiting South Bethlehem, Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2015
Oxidation & Interpretation, Santa Bannon / Fine Art (Bethlehem, PA) 2013
Photography: Perspectives & Perceptions, The State Theatre for the Arts (Easton, PA) 2013
Found at Fotofest, John Cleary Gallery (Houston, TX) 2008

collections

Museum of Fine Art Houston, Houston, TX
Amon Carter Museum (books), Fort Worth, TX
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Haverford College, Haverford, PA
Michigan State University Libraries, Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hung Special Collections (books), East Lansing, MI
Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, PA
Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, Allentown, PA
The Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Lafayette College, Easton, PA
Lafayette College, Special Collections (books), Easton, PA
Penn State University, Reading PA
Alvernia University, Reading, PA
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CN

clients (current & historic)

The Atlantic
Lehigh University
Partners Design
Scientific American
Lehigh Mining & Navigation
Air Products
AT&T
NCCC
The Barnett Group
Lucent Technologoes
SPS Technologies
Penn State
Penn State Berks
The Barnett Group
Rutgers Newark
MBIA
Moravian University
The Bach Choir
Projekt
First Commonwealth
PPL
Carpenter Technologies
Unisys
Engelhard