Drake Hokanson. Photograph by Carol Kratz

Photographer and author Drake Hokanson looks to the broad American land, its places, people and stories as the most important subjects for his photographs, books, exhibits and essays.

His black and white photographs are of ordinary things and places conditioned by human use, things made powerful by the inquiry of the camera. His subjects range coast to coast and include highways, small towns, landscapes, grain elevators, the Mississippi River, and the people who call American places home.

Hokanson works in 120 roll format using either Hasselblad cameras and lenses or a Fuji panorama camera, tripod mounted whenever possible. After a few weeks on the road shooting, he often arrives back home with as many as 150 rolls of film to process. Hokanson relies on Ansel Adams' Zone System of negative exposure and development. He prints exclusively on fine exhibition quality paper which is selenium toned, processed to archival standards and matted using 100% acid-free rag mat.

Drake Hokanson exhibited his first photograph in 1970: a small sepia-toned Iowa landscape that hung in a group show at the East Street Gallery in Grinnell, Iowa. Since then Hokanson has expanded his range to photograph the likes of Times Square, the cotton fields of West Texas, Donner Pass in California, and thunderstorms in eastern Montana. He has exhibited from Connecticut to California, with a score of one-man shows in art museums, historical and cultural museums and private galleries.

He has earned grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board and the Iowa Arts Council, and has participated in several recent group exhibitions including the "Wisconsin Triennial" at the Madison Arts Center and "Beyond the Perimeter" at the Minnesota Center for Photography. In 1997 he was selected as a photographer for the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Rephotographic Project, which culminated in the publication of Wisconsin Then and Now. In addition, Hokanson has conducted workshops and given lectures at many universities, museums, conferences, and galleries.

Hokanson is currently assistant professor in mass communication at Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota, where he teaches photography and journalism courses. He has taught at the University of Iowa; City University (London); Lakeland College; Lakeland College Japan (Tokyo); and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

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Opening for GRAIN at
Winona State University. Photograph by Rebecca Dettmann.








Solo Photographic Exhibitions:

GRAIN 2001--ongoing. 37 photographs plus text. Exhibit explores the architecture of grain elevators, the nature of grain, harvest, and the people who conduct the harvest.

Watkins Art Gallery, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota Fairfield Gallery, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin


Photographs of a Small Place 1992--1998. 35 photographs, text, labels. Photographs appear in Reflecting a Prairie Town: a Year in Peterson, published 1994.

Partial list of sites:
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa
Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
New Visions Gallery, Marshfield, Wisconsin
West Bend Art Museum, West Bend, Wisconsin
Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa
MacNider Museum, Mason City, Iowa
Lakes Art Center, Spirit Lake, Iowa
Sioux City Art Center, Iowa
Muscatine Art Center, Iowa


A Few Such Places 1992--1997. 25-35 photographs, text. A selection of recent work from as many as 12 states.

Viterbo College, La Crosse, Wisconsin
Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin Center--Sheboygan County


Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America 1989--1991. 80 photographs, text, map, poster. Sponsored by Exhibits USA of Kansas City. Photographs appeared in Lincoln Highway: Main Street across America, published 1988.

Partial list of sites:
Colorado State University/Fort Collins Museum, Fort Collins
University of Nebraska, College of Architecture, Lincoln
Ohio Historical Society, Columbus
Kansas State University Department of Art, Manhattan
Iowa State University College of Design, Ames
Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney
Alfred P. Sloan Museum, Flint, Michigan
Wyoming State Museum, Cheyenne
Marsho Family Medical Group, Sheboygan, Wisconsin


Plain and Prairie, Horizon and Sky 1988--1990. 20 photographs, text. Sponsored by Project Art, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City. A selection of work from the Midwest and Great Plains. Exhibit purchased by UIHC.


Lincoln Highway 1983--1986. 42 photographs, text, map. Sponsored in part by Iowa Arts Council. Was the seed exhibit for the Exhibits USA show.

Partial list of sites:
Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa
Project Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City
University of California, Davis
Octagon Gallery, Ames, Iowa
Witter Gallery, Storm Lake, Iowa
Burlington Arts Guild, Iowa
Muscatine Art Center, Iowa
Algona Public Library, Iowa
Scott County Community College, Davenport, Iowa

Harper, Iowa 1981. 12 photographs, text. A project combining photographs and words that brought to light elements of this small town's past. Exhibited at the University of Iowa School of Journalism.


Selected Collections:

University of Nebraska-Lincoln/Center for Great Plains Studies
Robert Coles, Concord, MA
David Henry, New York City
William Lobb, Atlanta, GA
John Fink, Chicago
Muscatine Clinic, Muscatine, IA
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, IA
Marsho Family Medical Group, Sheboygan, WI
Ralph T. Brotz, Kohler, WI
Plastics Engineering Company, Sheboygan, WI
Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA
Iowa State University, Ames, IA


Group Exhibitions and Commissions:

Hokanson's Winona State University students photograph the wonders of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.


Current projects:
Script consultant for Ken Burns and Florentine Films for "Horatio's Drive," a documentary film about the first transcontinental automobile trip. Documentary to air in 2003.

Purebred and Home-Grown: America's County Fairs With Carol Kratz, co-author. Have finished fieldwork, photography (color transparency--not likely to be exhibited), and documentary research for a book on U.S. county fairs. Have shot some 250 rolls of film, and conducted interviews and research at some 85 county-based agricultural fairs in 35 states from Alaska to Georgia during summers 1995-2000. Manuscript in preparation.

America from the Air: An Aviator's Story With Carol Kratz, co-editor. Will be a new volume of old essays by aviation pioneer and writer Wolfgang Langewiesche. From extensive interviews and other materials have written an introduction and biographical essay for this volume to be published in 2004 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Great Plains Ongoing photographic work of subjects on the Great Plains. Have spent parts of the last twelve summers photographing human and natural landscapes, structures, and people in a range of states from eastern Montana to West Texas. With some 150 images in the portfolio, expect to mount and book a traveling exhibition sometime in 2004.

Lincoln Highway research essays Editing a volume of research essays concerning the Lincoln Highway. This yet-untitled book will contain chapters by some 10 scholars. To be published in 2005 (or so) by the University of Iowa Press.

Outbound: The Curious Nature of Going A series of essays on the travelers' experience.