"At some point I became aware of the unbelievable infinite detail on the horizon; this is what drew my attention. So I set about to pursue the distant horizon."

-- Art Sinsabaugh (1924-83)

Like many photographers, Art Sinsabaugh (1924-1983) had done weddings. But weddings weren't what led him to purchase his first “banquet” camera.

“I had an 8x10 camera, had it for years. But I didn't have the money for an 8x10 enlarger. I just happened to see this old 12x20 on a dealer's shelf and I bought it,” Sinsabaugh told the Professional Photographer during a 1978 interview.

Through this antique camera, used primarily to photograph large groups of people, Sinsabaugh saw his future as an artist. In the years that followed his fluke purchase, he would use his new camera to capture, in striking detail, the great American landscape -- from the flat farmland of the Midwest to the bustling diversity of Chicago, the rustic towns and valleys of New England, and the vast spaces of the desert Southwest.

Despite the breadth and power of his artistic achievement, however, Sinsabaugh has never enjoyed the same name recognition as his more celebrated contemporaries.

More widespread recognition of this “artist's artist” may be on the horizon, though, now that the Indiana University Art Museum has organized the first-ever retrospective of Sinsabaugh's remarkable career. "American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh," which will run at the museum from Oct. 1 to Dec. 23, includes nearly 100 images, the majority of which were drawn from the Art Sinsabaugh Archive at IU Bloomington. The archive includes more than 3,000 photographs, as well as the artist's negatives, master slides, and papers. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Unlike landscape photographers such as Ansel Adams (1902-84), who has long enjoyed nearly universal recognition, Sinsabaugh is an artist ripe for rediscovery. His large-format photographs of the distant horizon and its endless subtleties -- including buildings, silos, bridges, highways, homes, skyscrapers, trees, and gravestones -- capture a richly nuanced sense of place and the ever-changing face of the American environment.

Sinsabaugh's landscapes reflect both his formal brilliance and his evolving social awareness. Working in a period of dramatic economic and environmental change, he was particularly drawn to urban and rural environments that were in the process of transformation, such as Chicago in the 1960s.

“Even my city pictures I consider landscapes, not cityscapes,” Sinsabaugh told The Professional Photographer . “I'm concerned with land, with its uses and misuses.”

In essence, Sinsabaugh's fame has been limited by his very integrity as an artist. He was one of the first photographers to produce his finished works in very small editions (often no more than three prints). As a result, his exhibition prints are extremely scarce and rarely seen by the general public.

The IUAM exhibition surveys all aspects of the artist's oeuvre, from his early design studies through his late work in the American Southwest. Although special emphasis is placed on his two most important series -- the Midwest Landscape Group (1961-63) and the Chicago Landscape Group (1964-66) -- examples of his lesser-known series, including his portraits and works in color, will also be included.

For more information on the retrospective, go to http://www.iub.edu/~iuam/online_modules/sinsabaugh/ .

To learn more about the IU Art Museum, visit http://www.artmuseum.iu.edu .