July 10 – October 5, 2025
In June of 2024 photographer Wayne Gudmundson carried out an extended photo shoot in the village of Trampot, France. A French non-profit named Allées-Avenues, dedicated to the education and preservation of tree-lined avenues, invited him for this shoot which resulted in a subtle but stunning series of beautiful black and white photographs. Later that year, Gudmundson worked with the director and master printer Geoffrey Peckham at Tusen Takk Foundation in Michigan to produce three portfolios, one of which the North Dakota Museum of Art is pleased to exhibit in its mezzanine gallery. Employing a high-resolution Sony Alpha 7R IV mirrorless digital camera with a high-performance stabilizer for long exposure times, Gudmundson initially produced 500 images from which he selected twenty-five images for the portfolio. He arranged these images to create a coherent sequencing that alternates points of view, from near and far, as well as variations in composition, tonal range, and texture.
According to Allées-Avenues, the term ‘allée’ refers to “tree-lined ‘ways of passage’ in parks and gardens, in towns or in the country. In the context of landscapes, ‘avenue’ has the same meaning in English. ‘Avenues’ (or ‘tree avenues’) are thus ‘ways of passage’—paths, streets, and roads, but also canals—lined with rows of regularly spaced trees. Avenues (in this sense) constitute an important cultural, natural, and landscape heritage in France, Europe, and beyond.” As these precious passageways are at risk from climate change, disease, and felling, new laws and several important cultural and scientific initiatives are now dedicated to their preservation. Gudmundson’s twenty-five photographs simultaneously constitute an homage and close study of these avenues. Avoiding the classic compositional tropes of landscape painting and photography, he hones in on details—some subtle, some curious—such as the unexpected arch of a branch, or the changing texture of foliage as shadows sharply recede or overlap, or the interjection of man-made elements that bisect or create tension in the composition from painted road markings, electrical lines, or a forsaken seesaw.
It is clear that these landscapes in France resonated with the North Dakota native. For those familiar with Gudmundson’s work, there is a similar sensibility infused here not only in the glimpses of vast open terrain interrupted by trees, but by the balance between nature and humanity that has characterized Gudmundson’s photographs of Mountain, North Dakota (where his family hails from), Valley City, Abercrombie, Sabin, or areas near the Garrison Dam. As noted by his French hosts, Gudmundson seemed to feel at home in the Trampot landscape and experienced a similar “calming feeling” while working in its landscape. Additionally, Gudmundson is no stranger to the peculiar allure of trees. In 2015, he produced a series of photographs titled The Trees of Burgandy; more recently, he photographed densely knitted treescapes on Horseshoe Road near his residence in Minnesota that revel in the textures of bark and the lush colors produced under the forest canopy. Although these latter photographs are infused with the same eye for detail and sophisticated composition, these photographs are intimate and up close as opposed to the images of the tree-line avenues. With each body of work then, Gudmundson presents us with particularized encounters of trees that embody a distinct sense of place and character.
Gudmundson was born in Fargo, North Dakota in 1949. He earned his MFA in photography from the University of Minnesota. His photographs are in the collections of many prominent institutions, including: the Museum of Modern Art, Center for Creative Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Denver Art Museum, The Library of Congress, and the Plains Art Museum. Gudmundson’s photographs have appeared in eleven books, several public television documentaries, and an expansive number of exhibitions over the past fifty-three years. He taught photography for twenty-five years in the department of Mass Communications at Minnesota State University Moorhead. For several years, he served as director of the New Rivers Press, the oldest non-profit literary press in the country. Currently, he is Professor Emeritus and divides his time between Minnesota, Arizona, and France.
Additional support for this exhibition provided by the following individuals:
Allan and Hazel Ashworth
