Dan Younger, MFA

Dan Younger is a Professor of Art, founder of the studio area, and former chair of the Department of Art & Design at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has been teaching art in college settings since 1978. His subjects currently include photography, cartooning, and history of both photography and comics and cartoons. Younger’s students in his cartoon studio class have published 10 comic books since 1988, which are in numerous public collections, including the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum at Ohio State University and The Cartoon Museum of London (UK) among others. In previous years he has also taught printmaking, graphic design, and computer art.

He has over 150 national and international exhibits, and his works are in numerous public collections including Museum de Stadt in Gladbeck Germany, The Fox Talbot Museum and the National Trust, Lacock, England, The Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), the Harry Ransom Center at UT- Austin, The Saint Louis Art Museum, and Diaphne – Pole Photographique of Montreuil, France. He is also a member of the National Press Photographer’s Association (US), The Society for Photographic Education (US), and the Royal Photographic Society (UK).

Younger spent the summer of 2017 in Beauvais, France photographing Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais, a 13th century masterpiece of Gothic design. Over that time he produced over two hundred 360° images of the interior of that cathedral with the intention to create a « street map » of the interior, which would allow website visitors to tour the cathedral. A website became available in 2021.

Younger prides himself in taking on and transforming subject matter in photography which are mostly the province of amateurs: vacations and children. His pictures of strangers enjoying (and photographing) themselves in vacation spots, called “Travel Places” has been shown across the US and was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Sheldon Galleries in St. Louis in February 2014. William Wilson, Director of the Grand Center for the Arts in Tracy, California, wrote that Younger’s images are “equally disturbing and charming”.

In an essay accompanying the catalog of the 2008 Grand Center exhibit he wrote, “Dan Younger captures the moments in between the anticipated highlights of the vacation. These are depictions of what really goes on around us in the places we gather in attempts to be entertained, rewarded, and find relaxation.” Aline Smithson of LENSCRATCH says Younger’s work proves “that normal life is even more odd and quirky than, well, things we consider odd and quirky. Dan explores human behavior on vacation, examining how we react to and inhabit spaces that are designed for leisure.”

His second portfolio called “Some Kids” are photographs of children at parties and at play. This work was featured in “Photaumnales 2013” an international photo festival in the French town of Bueuvais, in September of 2013. Younger was the solo American invited to this international event. Aline Smithson of LENSCRATCH wrote, “Never before have so many fine art and documentary photographers turned their lenses on the world within the confines of their own front door. Photographers who document family are participant observers–caught between the decision to participate in familial activities or capturing their loved ones with photographic interpretation, sometimes at their expense. Dan Younger has created a portfolio called “Some Kids” that are photographs of children at parties and at play. He prides himself with transforming subject matter that is mostly the province of amateurs: vacations and children.”

Younger’s photographs have also been used in the sets of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” ABC’s “Meet the Newlyweds,” Fox’s “I Married a Stranger,” and VH1’s “Scot Baio is 45 - And Still Single,” among others. Tony Marsh, Emmy winning director of “Newlyweds,” wrote that Younger’s photographs are “bold and evocative. They do not merely document but beckon you to wander around in the sublime space between first impression and fond memory.”