Administrative/Biographical Note
"Fort Pillow, Tennessee, 2010." Digital Image,Stephen Marc Photography collection, UMBC (Coll353).
Born in Rantoul, Illinois (1954), Stephen Marc (Stephen Marc Smith) is a documentary/street
photographer and digital montage artist whose work explores the Black experience in
America and interprets American history. He was raised on the South Side of Chicago,
and considered Champaign-Urbana, IL his home away from home while growing up. Marc
received his BA from Pomona College (1976) and his MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple
University (1978). He served on the faculty of the Department of Photography at Columbia
College Chicago for twenty years before leaving for Arizona State University (ASU)
in Tempe, AZ in 1998. He retired in 2024 as Professor of Art at ASU, where he holds
emeritus status. Marc has published four photography books: American/True Colors (Co-published
with George F. Thompson Publishing and Stephen Marc in association with the Center
for the Study of Place, 2020), Passage on the Underground Railroad (University Press
of Mississippi, 2009), The Black Trans-Atlantic Experience: Street Life and Culture
in Ghana, Jamaica, England, and the United States (Columbia College Chicago, 1992),
and Urban Notions (Ataraxia Press, 1983). Since 2008, Passage on the Underground Railroad has
been listed as an Interpretative Program of the National Underground Railroad Network
to Freedom, a division of the National Park Service. Marc has received grants from
the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment
for the Arts, and his awards include the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art
and the Society for Photographic Education's Insight Award. In 2021 he was awarded
the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in photography. His work is held by the Smithsonian
American Art Museum, the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago,
the Brooklyn Museum, and the Saint Louis Art Museum, among others.
Scope & Content
Arrangement
Box level inventory is available.
Provenance Information
Provenance and Acquisition Information
Accessions B2023-22, P2024-03, and MSS2024-11
Processing Note
The archival and photographic collection materials were transferred to UMBC Special
Collections in November 2024 by Stephen Marc.
Descriptive Rules Used
Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS)
Archives Processing Manual: Description (2015): The processing manual used in Special Collections for all descriptive platforms, including
PastPerfect.
Access & Use
Finding Aids
Box level inventory is available upon request.
Access Conditions
Materials are available for research use. There are no restrictions at this time.
Conditions Governing Reproductions and Use
Reproductions allowed for research purposes. Copyright is maintained by Stephen Marc.
