Nicholas Whitman

Nicholas Whitman is an American photographer. He is best known for his work chronicling the decay and transformations of buildings, as well as his nature studies.[2] His most recent work’s basis is the physical world, but more as an "evocative interpretation rather than a literal one."[3] "Subject intersects with intangibles like mood. Symbols speak across cultures and through time."[4] These themes are manifest in the painting of Albert Pinkham Ryder, a recent focus of Whitman's. Whitman’s show “After Ryder” at the New Bedford Whaling Museum from 2018-2019 was an homage to the spirit of the painter, and in 2020 another show will exhibit Whitman's work alongside Ryder's.[5]

Whitman began photographing North Adams’ abandoned Sprague Electric Company factory in 1988 “because it would surely be razed.” Documenting the then-deteriorating 19th-century mill buildings, Whitman captured scenes ranging from vast postindustrial landscapes to minute traces of the plant’s former workers. Whitman’s meticulously composed photographs -- windows onto the historic nature of Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art’s celebrated[6] renovated factory campus -- are currently on display in the museum and accompanied by an expanded catalog, A PLACE REMOVED.[7][8] Whitman has had a long association with the museum; his earlier MASS MoCA: From Mill to Museum (2001) documented its initial creation from the husk of the sprawling[9] electronics plant.[10][11]

Similarly, Whitman's 2008 book, The Colonial Theatre: A Pittsfield Resurrection, showcases the transformation of the Miller Supply Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts into an architectural jewel.[12][13]

A graduate of RIT's photography program, Whitman was Curator of Photography at the New Bedford Whaling Museum from 1978 to 1986.[14] In addition to his independent work, he was an instructor at Williams College's winter studies program between 2003-2018.[15][16]