This outstanding series features some of the world’s foremost art historians, curators, artists, and collectors. Everyone is invited to these free lectures. An always elegant reception for Collectors Circle members, also sponsored by Northern Trust, is held one hour before the lecture. Cynthia Astrack is President of the Collectors Circle.

Photographer Stephen Wilkes will introduce his expansive work for the first time in the Tampa Bay area. His many honors include an Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography; a 2004 Lucie Award, Fine Art Photographer of the Year; and TIME’s “Top 10 Photographs of 2012.”

Stephen Wilkes

His series have explored Mainland China, California’s Highway One, the long abandoned medical wards of Ellis Island, and the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Through his photographs and video, he helped secure $6 million toward the restoration of the south side of Ellis Island. A monograph based on his images, Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom, was published in 2006 and was named one of TIME ’s “5 Best Photography Books of the Year.”

In 2000, Epson America commissioned Mr. Wilkes to create a millennial portrait of the United States, America In Detail, which was exhibited in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He began his acclaimed project, Day to Night, in 2009. These epic cityscapes and landscapes, portrayed from a fixed camera angle for up to 30 hours, capture fleeting moments of humanity, as light passed in front of his lens during the course of a full day.

With a grant from the National Geographic Society, he extended this project to include America’s national parks in celebration of their centennial anniversary. The entire Day to Night series will
be published by TASCHEN as a monograph in 2017.

His images of the devastation of Katrina and Sandy have raised awareness about the effects of climate change. He documented the former for the World Monuments Fund and his images of the latter were featured in the 2014 exhibition, Sink or Swim: Designing for a Sea Change. He is currently working on a documentary film about the historic bank building at 190 Bowery in Manhattan, purchased by photographer Jay Maisel.

His photographs are part of the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the George Eastman Museum; the Jewish Museum in New York; the 9/11 Memorial Museum; the Snite Museum of Art, the University of Notre Dame; and the Library of Congress.

His images have appeared in and on the covers of, the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, TIME, Fortune, National Geographic, and Sports Illustrated, among others. He holds his BS in
photography from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Collectors Circle lectures are open to the public and free with MFA admission.

This Collector's Circle event is sponsored by