The Newhouse School and the Department of Multimedia Photography and Design (MPD) celebrated the opening of the new Kim Steele Portfolio Center with a dedication event on the evening of Dec. 5.
Kim Steele
Supported by a gift from Syracuse University alumnus and noted photographer Kim Steele ’71, the Steele Center is a three-room complex located in Newhouse 1, providing a home base for MPD students and faculty. Steele attended the event.
“My favorite memories of Newhouse are studying in the quiet library in Newhouse 1 and experimenting in the studio,” says Steele. “I am thrilled to provide this space for current and future students.”
The Steele Center includes a community room where students can study design and images, share ideas, mount exhibitions, frame work, assemble portfolios and meet with faculty. A high-end computer workspace includes top-of-the-line digital inkjet photo printers. And a collaboration room allows production teams to come together to plan and manage media projects.
Steele, a graduate of SU’s College of Arts & Sciences, took photography classes at Newhouse while he was an undergraduate. He has had a long and varied career as a successful commercial freelance photographer and an instructor at the University of the Arts in San Francisco.
His early photographic work secured him a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which allowed him to attend graduate school at the University of New Mexico.
His work has taken him all over the world and is included in many major collections, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Minnesota Institute of Art and corporate collections for companies such as Seagrams, Goldman Sachs, New York Life, Exxon, AT&T and more.
His editorial work has appeared in publications such as Life, Forbes, Fortune, Smithsonian, Vogue and Newsweek, among others. Recently, his work was featured in The New York Times Sunday Review.
Steele and his wife have been actively involved with the Newhouse School for several years.
Guests at the dedication event also took a moment to thank Tony Golden, outgoing chair of MPD, for his 39 years of service to the school. Golden, who is retiring this month, served as MPD department chair for 19 years.
Kim Steele Portfolio Center, Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University Dedication Ceremony 12.5.2013 from MPD – SI Newhouse School on Vimeo.
