Todd Walker

Todd Walker (1917 – September 13, 1998) was an American photographer, printmaker and creator of artists' books who is known for his manipulated images and for his use of offset lithography to produce individual prints and limited-edition books of his work.

Early life

Walker was born in Utah and grew up in Los Angeles. His father died when he was 14, and he struggled to find a place to belong in life. As a teenager he earned money painting backdrops on movie sets, and he learned to study tonalities when called upon to paint the faux finish on the fireplace in the movie Citizen Kane so it would render properly in black-and-white. He also used this time to learn about color mixing by combining leftover paints at the end of the day to create new hues.

Early photographic career Walker began to learn photography some time in the late 1930s, and after World War II he established a commercial photography studio in Los Angeles. Through most of the 1950s he was in high demand for his creative advertising work that featured striking visual images and intense colors. Seven years later he moved to Tucson and taught at the University of Arizona before retiring in 1985.

Late digital work While in Arizona, Walker began working with some of the first Apple computers, and he used his technical skills to create some early 3-D images of his work and to create a book in which the text was mostly generated by the computer (Enthusiasm Strengthens, 1987). According to his daughter, Walker never used Photoshop or other commercial imaging software. He wrote his own computer programs and later made use of software primarily designed for cartography. With these techniques he was able to create digital works that blurred, inverted and obscured the original image, making it into an expressive rather than detailed representation of reality.

Walker died of cancer in 1998.

Publications How Would It Feel to Be Able to Dance Like This?, 1967 For Nothing Changes: Democritus, on the Other Side, Burst Out A-Laughing, Photographs by Todd Walker with excerpts from "Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton (1577–1640). Published by Todd Walker, 1976. Ri is for Rock, 1986 Enthusiasm Strengthens, Tucson, Arizona (Thumbprint Press?), 1987 The Story of an Abandoned Shack in the Desert, 1995 (Reprinted by Nazraeli Press as An Abandoned Shack, 2000)