Francois Deschamps
100 Years Ago 
My first photographs, made as a child of ten with a borrowed camera, were of
a huge deserted Victorian house inexplicably isolated on a spit of land
amidst miles of open swamp. I was viscerally thrilled by the half furnished
decaying rooms, the ripped walls revealing mysterious inner spaces, the dark
passageways, and the pervasive smell of the rotting swamp. I am now
imagining a Victorian past lived on a small island off the coast of Maine. I
have become the odd reclusive photographer living in the Old Funeral Parlor
documenting the strange happenings on that remote island one hundred years
ago.
Francois Deschamps
Absence
Other Works 
Resume
Francois Deschamps
Selected Exhibits (solo and small group exhibitions)
2003 •“Virtual Objects,” Muroff Kotler Gallery, Stoneridge, NY (solo)
1997 •“Lakemba and Rotuma,” Unison Gallery, New Paltz, NY (solo)
1996 •”Oceanic Passages / Sites of Fear,” Synchronicity Space, New York City, NY (two person)
1993 • O.K. Harris Gallery, New York City, NY (solo)
•“Two Photographers,” Munson-Williams-Proctor Gallery, Utica, NY (two person)
•“Operation Cuba,” Barrett House, Poughkeepsie, NY (solo)
1991 • O.K. Harris Gallery, New York City, NY (solo)
• Zimmerman Saturn Gallery, Nashville, TN (solo)
1989 •“Narrative Objects,” College Art Gallery, S.U.N.Y. College at New Paltz, NY (solo)
1988 • The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY (solo)
1987 • Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (solo)
1986 • Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA (two-person)
1984 •“Constructed Image,” C.E.P.A. Gallery, Buffalo, NY (five person)
1983 • California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA (solo)
1981 • Bard College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson, NY (solo)
1975 •“Four for Illinois,” Columbia College Gallery, Chicago, IL
• Museum Gallery, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL (three person)
1973 • Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL (solo)
SELECTED INVITATIONAL GROUP SHOWS
2004 •“Ninety from the Nineties: a Decade of Printing,” The New York Public Library, (book)
2002-3 •“Taken by Design,” Art Institute of Chicago, San?Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art (book)
1998 •”Cover to Cover,” Rice Gallery, Albany, NY
•”Into Focus/Art on Science, Mandeville Gallery, Union College, Schenectady, NY .(catalog)
1995-96 •“Science and the Artist’s Book,” Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C. (catalog)
1994 •“Lessons in Life,” Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1993 •“American Made/The New Still Life,” travelling show: Isetan Museum, Tokyo;
Hokaido-Obihiro Museum of Art, Japan; Royal College of Art, London (catalog)
1992 •“Completing the Circle,” Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN (catalog)
•“Wit and Wisdom,” Forum Gallery, Jamestown, NY (catalog)
1991 •“Picture Plane to Object,” Brea Civic and Cultural Center Gallery, Brea, CA
•“Photographic Book Art in the United States,” University of Texas at San Antonio Art Gallery, TX (travelling)
1990 •“Learn to Read, Artists’ Books,” Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Canada
•“Contemporary Book Art,” Print Club, Philadelphia, PA
1989 •“Invention and Continuity in Contemporary Photography,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
1986 •“Form and Fantasy,” Maine Photographic Workshop Gallery, Rockport, ME
1984 •“Alternative Image II,” Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (catalog)
•“Alchemies: Contemporary Handcoated Images,” Catskill Center for Photography, Woodstock NY (travelling)
1983 •“An Open Land,” Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Chicago, IL (catalog)
•“Hand Colored Photographs,” Santa Fe Center for Photography, Santa Fe, NM
1975 •“Clay, Camera and Cinema,” Nancy Lurie Gallery, Chicago, IL
1972 •“Multiple Image,” University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI (travelling)
SELECTED Grants and Awards
2002 Cité Internationale des Arts residency in Paris, France 1999 New York Foundation for the Arts, Artists’ Fellowship
1995 University of Auckland Foundation Visitors Fellowship 1988 New York Foundation for the Arts, Artists’ Fellowship
1994 N.E.A./Arts International Travel Grant (to Fiji) 1987 Project Grant from New York Council on the Arts
1991 Nexus Press Individual Artists Project Grant, Atlanta, GA 1987 National Endowment for the Arts, Artists’ Fellowship
1990 Art Matters Inc., New York City, NY 1983 National Endowment for the Arts, Artists’ Fellowship
COLLECTIONS
Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York City, NY Houston Museum of Fine Arts, TX Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL Haughton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA New York Public Library, New York City, NY
SELECTED Books By The Artist
1999 • Sombras Rojas, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY
1995 • Mémoire d’un Voyage en Océanie, PhotoForum/University of Auckland, New Zealand
1994 • Cartesian Dreams, (Collaboration with J. Mohns), Papyrus Productions
1992 • A Guide to Antipodea, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1991 • Particle Theory, (Collaboration with J. Mohns), Nexus Press, Atlanta, GA
1989 • Small Oddities, College Art Gallery, S.U.N.Y. College at New Paltz, NY
1988 • The Return of the Slapstick Papyrus, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY
1986 • Life in a Book, Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, NY
