theo anderson

bio

Theo Anderson (b. Scranton, Pennsylvania) discovered photography while pursuing a Doctorate of Arts in government at Lehigh University. A photographer since 1978, his early work focused on reportage and illustration for corporate and editorial clients.

Since 2004, Anderson has turned inward, photographing the felt experience of daily life—the beauty in disorder, coherence in the broken, and meaning in the everyday absurd. His images, grounded in the American social-documentary tradition yet shaped by intuition, unfold as visual poems of the commonplace and are expressed through handmade books.

His ongoing project snafu (2017–2025) embodies this approach: sixty-six handmade books and a field guide that together form a sustained meditation on imperfection, persistence, and time. Reaching toward a Whitman-esque embrace of multiplicity and contradiction, snafu accepts fragmentation as a form of wholeness—a mirror to the American condition itself.

works

snafu (2017-2025)
cowboy (2004 - 2020)
ulisse (2004 - 2013)

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

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

Here and Now: 100 Years of LUAG, Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) 2025
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