Smallworks Press is pleased to announce the eBook release of Motel Vegas by author, art historian, and photographer Fred Sigman on November 1, 2021. Motel Vegas is an IPPY award-winning pictorial treatise on the rise and fall of America’s roadside architecture. Released in 2019, the hardcover edition debuted with a formal reception, panel discussion on historic preservation and book signing with the author at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas.
Motels, motor courts and their various manifestations have played a significant role in the development of automobile culture, especially with the advent of famed Route 66; the “Mother Road” that unlocked the west for millions of Americans and intrepid travelers from around the world. Motel Vegas celebrates the vaunted architectural vernacular that at once dominated Las Vegas’ skyline.
Based upon previous photographic projects Sigman had completed about Las Vegas, these photographs were commissioned by Ivan Karp, the American art dealer, gallerist and author, instrumental in the emergence of pop art and the development of Manhattan’s SoHo gallery district. Photographs, made with a large format view camera, document the most historic motel locations in Las Vegas and surrounding area. Including essays by City of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commissioner Bob Stoldal, Las Vegas Artist James Stanford, Nevada Press Association writing award winner Scott Dickensheets, and a foreword by Alan Hess, architectural historian and one of America’s preeminent authorities on Modernism.
About the Author
Fred Sigman is a photographer, art historian and adventurer. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) in Art History and Philosophy. While at the University of New Mexico (UNM), Fred’s master’s thesis examined the early work of Wassily Kandinsky. His doctoral dissertation contextualized the work of four American photographers who sought the “spiritual in art” among the world’s cultures and ancient architecture.
His career led him to be one of the few photographers ever permitted to photograph inside of a casino with a view camera. In addition, he went on to work as the archivist and photographer at the world-famous Las Vegas News Bureau, part of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. He has taught art history in various colleges and universities in the American southwest. Exhibitions of Fred’s work have been held throughout the United States including New York, Palm Beach, Las Vegas, San Diego, Albuquerque and internationally. Sigman continues as a professor of global art history, while teaching online from his home in Southeast Asia and while continuing his travels.
About Smallworks Press
Founded in 2006, Smallworks Press is an award-winning publisher specializing in arts and culture trade titles and limited editions. From motels in Vegas, to street art and aerial photographs of land art on the playa, for nearly twenty-five years Smallworks Press has published the work of artists and writers that explore our world and the place of the arts within it, and always – the shimmering Zen of the neon lights of Vegas.
Laura Henkel of ArtCulture PR served as Managing Editor for the project.