Charles Joseph Desmarais

Background

Charles Joseph Desmarais was born in 1949 in New York City, United States.

Education

Desmarais earned his BS from the State University of New York, Buffalo, and his MFA from that school's Visual Studies Workshop in 1977.

Career

He was director of the California Museum of Photography at Riverside. Since 1977 Desmarais has been editor of Exposure: SPE, and from 1977 to 1979 served as director/curator of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. He was assistant editor of Afterimage: VSW from 1975 to 1977, and an intern for the NEA in 1976. In 1973-74 he was a curator for Friends of Photography in Carmel, California.

Achievements

• PUBLICATIONS Catalogs: Michael Bishop, ed. & intro., 1979, Roger Mertin: Records 1976-78, ed. &, afterword, 1978, A Directory: Critics of Photography, ed. w/Tae Terumoto, 1977 (Chicago Ctr. for Contemporary Photography); Photographic Works by Fred Endsley, intro., 1977 (Chicago: Two Illinois Ctr).

Membership

Desmarais is on the board of directors of SPE and is a member of the Photographic Historical Society of New York. He received an NEA Art Critic's Fellowship in 1979.

Interests

• He lists Nathan Lyons, Charles Hagen and Peter Thompson as major influences.