Fine Art: Michael Zide
Michael Zide: 1944 to Feb 14 2024 
Michael Zide, a fine art landscape photographer and educator, who created an outstanding body of work throughout his lifetime that has been featured both globally and locally in galleries from New York City to Los Angeles. His photography perfectly expressed the grand sense of awe he experienced from nature. He would often recount what to him was the defining moment when he realized his passion for photography. It was January 10th 1949, during a historic snowfall in Los Angeles, California. He took a photograph of the golden morning light shining through a cascade of snowflakes. The emotional power of that moment sent him on a lifetime journey with the enchantment of nature. This journey brought him eastward to Martha’s Vineyard and the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, where he captured most of his mature work and influenced his many students as a teacher at The Hallmark Institute of Photography. During his career as an educator, he also spent years teaching at the Maine Workshops Series and Vermont Center for Photography. Accompanying his academic accolades, he was a proud member of Moab fine art paper Master Photographers Program and contributing writer for the Manfrotto School of Xcellence.
His photographs can be seen in numerous collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA, and Wellington Management Corporate Art Collection, China. His work also graces the walls of many institutions on Martha’s Vineyard including hospitals and the universities of the pioneer valley including Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire college. R. Michelson Galleries is honored to present this selection of Michael’s photography.
Zide aimed to harness the wonder of the ever-evolving nature throughout the Connecticut river valley and beyond in his photographs: “My efforts reflect a connection to place and to eons of geological time that color my photography and filter my vision of the Valley landscape… I am fascinated by the Valley’s colorful past and the elemental forces that continue to make themselves visible through the changing weather and seasons.”
Michelson Galleries is honored to present this selection of Michael’s photography.
On a personal note, I first met Michael in 1975, when I visited Martha’s Vineyard for a summer job as a busboy . The job lasted less than a week before I was fired but, luckily, I found a housing situation for $25/week. I spent the next month taking Michael’s photography class and writing poetry. Four years later I opened my gallery in Western MA, and three years after that Michael and his wife, Jana, moved a few blocks from the home I shared with my wife Jennifer. He was as kind and gentle a soul as I have ever met—a wonderful photographer, teacher, and human being. – Richard Michelson
Pioneer Valley:
10×12.5 in
13×19 in
13.5×10.5 in
15.5×20.5 in
6.5×10 in
13.25×20 in
13×20 in
13.25×20 in
13×20 in
13.25×20 in
20×15.5 in
12.5×20.5 in
13×20.5 in
13×20.5 in
13.5×20 in
15.25×17.25 in
19.75×14.75 in
12.25×20 in
Martha’s Vineyard:
19.5×13 in
13.5×18 in
13.5×18 in
20×24 in
16×29.5 in
16×22 in
16×21 in