Dan Powell received his BA degree in 1972, an MA degree in 1976 from Central Washington University, and his MFA degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1980. Powell taught photography in the Art Department at the University of Northern Iowa from 1980-1987 before beginning his current position teaching photography at the University of Oregon in 1988.
Selected sites of Powell’s work in group exhibitions include the Royal College of Art, London; the Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL; Center for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Light Gallery, New York, NY; A. Robert Samuel Gallery, New York, NY; San Francisco Camerawork, S.F., CA; The Friends of Photography, Carmel, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY; La Maison Europeane de la Photographie, Paris, France; Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR; C.E.P.A. Gallery, Syracuse, NY; The Silver Image Gallery, Seattle, WA; and Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY. Selected one-person exhibitions include Thom Barry Fine Arts, Minneapolis, MN; PPS Gallery, Hamburg, Germany; The Silver Image Gallery, Seattle, WA; Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR; Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA; G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle, WA; Ledel Gallery, New York, NY; Project Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA; and Condeso/Lawler Gallery, New York, NY.
Powell has received numerous grants and fellowships including University of Oregon research awards, Polaroid Corporation purchase awards, a Maine Photographic Workshops grant, and in 1981 he received an Emerging Artists Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work appears in collections at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Lightwork, Syracuse, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and Art Institute of Chicago. Powell’s work has been reviewed in prestigious publications including Art Week, New Art Examiner, Art News, Afterimage, and the New York Times. A comprehensive archive of Powell’s work is being collected by Special Collections, Knight Library at The University of Oregon.