Todd Hido American, b. 1968

American photographer Todd Hido is known for his atmospheric images of anonymous houses at night, urban landscapes, neglected interiors, and melancholic characters. His photographs are often described as cinematic, evoking an implicit narrative that allows for the viewer’s interpretation. Often shooting in inclement conditions, sometimes through the windshield of his car, Hido finds the quiet, if unsettling, allure of lonely roads and enduring trees. Mountains shimmer and melt in the rain, while forlorn houses stand blank-faced in the snow.

Born in 1968 in Kent, Ohio, the difficulties of Hido’s early life greatly influence his art. Raised in a working, middle-class family in the rustbelt, Hido, in interviews, has referenced how the solemn observations of others’ homes and moody expanses of desolate suburban scapes were precipitated by the infamous Kent State University shootings in 1970 and his father’s alcoholism. He left Middle America behind to attend university in Boston. After receiving his B.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University, he earned his M.F.A. in 1996 from the California College of the Arts, where he was mentored by Larry Sultan and later went on to become an adjunct professor of photography. Hido has been the recipient of the Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Visual Arts Award, and the Barclay Simpson Award.

Hido’s photography has been featured in numerous publications, including Artforum, The New York Times, and Wired, and is in many private and public permanent collections, including The Getty, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Legion of Honor, and Smithsonian.

House Hunting, Hido’s breakout monograph, was published in 2001, and was followed by more than a dozen others, including Outskirts, Roaming, Excerpts from Silver Meadows, Bright Black World, and The End Sends Advance Warning, published in 2024. The following year Hido released Intimate Distance, a comprehensive career retrospective that includes new work from his international travels. The artist lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.