Rich Bergeman, The Vanishing West

April 5-27, 2019
Opening reception Friday, April 5, from 6-8pm

The Lobby Gallery
Columbia Center for the Arts
215 Cascade Ave.
Hood River, OR 97031
541-387-8877
www.columbiaarts.org
Open Tues-Sat 11-5pm

Corvallis photographer Rich Bergeman’s black-and-white photographs chronicle the disappearing traces of frontier days on Columbia Plateau and Northern Great Basin–deserted homesteads, abandoned schoolhouses, ghost town and other remnants of early attempts by Euro-Americans to settle the Northwest.

The photographer has spent much of the past two decades creating art out of forgotten histories in Oregon and Washington, focusing particularly on the far-flung eastern parts of both states. The CCA exhibit includes images of old towns, historic ranches and deserted homesteads from the High Desert and mountain mining areas of eastern Oregon, as well as the Okanogan and Palouse regions of Washington. Such formerly prosperous turn-of-the-century Oregon towns as Flora, Antelope and Granite are represented, as well as Goodnoe Hills and Molson in Washington, among others.

An exhibiting fine-art photographer for nearly 30 years, Bergeman retired from teaching photography and journalism at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany in 2007, and since then has been working full-time on his photography projects. In recent years he has created books and exhibits on the homestead land rush in Central Oregon, the life of Washington pioneer James Swan on Willapa Bay, the human history of Oregon’s Coast Range rivers, and the landscapes of the Rogue River Wars in Southern Oregon. Examples of his photographs can be seen at richbergeman.zenfolio.com, and at blurb.com.