Peter Glendinning

Peter Glendinning earned the MFA in Experimental Studio at Syracuse University in 1978. Previous education included a BS in Photojournalism, a BS in Political Science, a BFA in Studio Art, and 2 years of study in the School of Law, all at Syracuse University. He studied with Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research in 1973.  Since 1978 he has been on the faculty of the Department of Art & Art History, presently serving as a W. J. Beale Distinguished Professor. He has taught the full gamut of photography coursework, the Senior Seminar in Professional Practices, and developed the university’s first on-line photography course.  The series of five courses he co-authored and teaches on the Coursera platform, Photography Basics & Beyond, has enrolled many hundreds of thousands of learners from around the world, and extended MSU’s Land Grant mission to over 100 countries, since 2016.

His photographs are represented in the George Eastman House, University of Arizona/Tucson, Temple University, K-Mart Corp., and other public and private collections. His professional clients include GMAC, Fuji Film USA, Genovese Drugs, Panasonic, UAW, State Bar of Michigan, Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association, Governor John Engler’s official portrait, and other major corporations and entities, for which he has provided portrait and still-life photography for advertising, illustration, and other communications purposes. He has served as President of the Midwest Region, Society for Photographic Education, and President/Vice-President/Board Member of the Photo-Imaging Education Association. He is regularly called on to serve on art exhibit juries, and has been a guest lecturer on professional practices in art at colleges in the United States and South Africa.

In 2019 he served for 7 months in South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar.  He received the Paul Varg Arts & Letters Alumni Association Award for excellence in teaching in 2009, and the William J. Beal Distinguished Faculty Award in 2021. Other awards include: Individual Artist Grants from the Michigan Council on the Arts and from Unicolor Corporation; the ADDY Award; Citations of Excellence and numerous Gallery of Superb Printing Awards; the American Society of Media Photographers Best of Fine Art Photography 2015 Award.

In his 2022 Fulbright Specialist role he served as visiting artist in conjunction with 6 solo exhibits of Attached to the Soil at South African Universities. In 2023 Attached to the Soil was exhibited for 8 months at The Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Centre of Memory, Johannesburg, in 2024 it was exhibited in one of South Africa’s three national art museums, the William Humphreys Art Gallery, and in 2025 it was featured as the opening exhibit of the Cape Town Photography Festival at the Simon’s Town Museum.