Left: portrait of John Suhay by John Warks; right: unidentified photographer, possibly a self-portrait.
John Suhay has aptly been described by curator Jina Brenneman as “probably the most important photographer” who ever lived in Pueblo, Colorado [1]. He grew up in Pittsburgh and first glimpsed Colorado from a military train window in 1943. Like most “concerned” documentarians in that era, his influences were drawn from wartime correspondents working for Life magazine: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, W. Eugene Smith, and others. Their approach can be seen in his earliest mature work, which depicts elderly and down-and-out men in Pittsburgh. Brenneman recalls his title for the series as “Men Sitting on Benches” (below), yet more than that, each is a stark reminder of the poverty that existed in the midst of America’s postwar expansion.
Suhay arrived in Pueblo in 1955. There, he found a grueling job as a “crane chaser” at Pueblo’s CF&I steel mill. After thirteen years of working there and freelancing in his spare time, he quit CF&I and committed to a full-time career in photography. He earned his living with corporate assignments, school sports, council debates, and the occasional offbeat fashion shoot. In many ways his career mirrors that of Myron Wood, who I have written about in previous posts. Both were military veterans with a keen eye for vernacular life in their towns, and both sidelined as resident photographers for their hometown art centers - Wood at the Taylor Museum in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and Suhay at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center (SCAC).
Suhay began working for the SCAC in 1972. Two years later, the center hosted his first exhibition, The Eye of Suhay. Like Wood, Suhay was drawn to crowds at state fairs, city parades, and gatherings of people ranging from cowboys to elderly ladies. He was also drawn to small disasters, often by virtue of his day job working for insurance companies. Suhay himself cataloged his collection by subject, many with sub-categories: Abandonment, consisting of derelict buildings across the state; Historic Pueblo - a collection of signs, streets, and more buildings; Nature; and Candid Miscellaneous, which would become the title of his retrospective exhibition three decades after he joined SCAC.
Dolls recur throughout his work, either in the hands of children or as damaged set ups he made from street detritus. The images below provide just a hint of the range of his subjects and the sensitivity of his eye.
The Eye of Suhay remained his only significant exposure as an artist until the early 2000s, when Brenneman (then Jina Pierce), in her role as SCAC’s visual arts curator, persuaded him to show her his personal work. She was astounded by what she saw - hundreds of images that were, In her words, “about humanity, about the extremes of human emotion. … It’s about Pueblo but it speaks to the entire nation.” [2]
Following her discovery, Brenneman pinned Suhay’s images on her walls at home, where they were seen by the punk singer Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedy’s) during an after-show gathering. Biafra urged her to exhibit the work and was enlisted to help curate a 150-print retrospective titled Candid Miscellaneous, which opened at SCAC in January 2004. [3]
Brenneman also enlisted the noted large-format photographer Andrea Modica - then based in Manitou Springs - and Colorado Springs photographer Carol Dass to help assemble the show. In a 2004 article in the Colorado Springs Independent, Modica observed that “Suhay has an amazing sense of constructing a picture. … There’s a physicality about his pictures [that] goes beyond what’s easy.” [4]
The image below is one of my favorites. Formally, Suhay’s composition of the three men is flawless, and like many of his images it invites a narrative to be constructed around it. The man at right leans over the water fountain, drinking. He appears to be well-dressed in a smart hat, bow tie, and polished shoes, yet he steadies himself with a makeshift cane roughly cut from a tree branch. In his other hand he carries a lunch box-like metal container that might contain a sandwich but could conceivably be stuffed with a block of hundred dollar bills withdrawn from a local bank.
At his right, a middle-aged bystander - possibly the drinking man’s companion - waits for him patiently, jacket open to reveal a watch chain crossing over his lean figure. Behind them both a man peering over a wall gives the impression that they are on a high embankment or bridge. Has his attention been caught by a parade passing below? Is he barfing after a three-martini lunch? Perhaps, even, he’s on the look out for police chasing this unlikely gang of three seemingly respectable people after a heist? We will never know the answers, but Suhay was there to capture the moment for posterity.
Three Men, Pittsburgh, ca. 1940-50s. Courtesy of Jina Brenneman.
My research into Suhay’s exhibition history finds no shows in Denver, Boulder, or elsewhere along the Front Range aside from a companion show to Candid Miscellaneous at the Phototroph gallery in Colorado Springs. This seems like a remarkably meager resume for one of Colorado’s most perceptive street photographers.
A sample of his work will be included in my upcoming Outside Influence: Photography in Colorado 1945-95 exhibition at the Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, March 13-April 27, 2025. Hopefully, a far broader collection of his imagery will be assembled by some enterprising curator or gallery owner in the near future.
A short posthumous video with a selection of John Suhay’s commercial and personal images is posted on YouTube here. His archive of more than 200,000 images is divided between several Pueblo organizations, including the public library and Pueblo Historical Society.
[1] Quoted in Scott Smith: “Simply Suhay: Arts Center photographer shares a slice of Americana, Pueblo-style, Pueblo Chieftain, Sunday, December 12, 2004.
[2] Quoted in John Hazlehurst, “Eye of the Lens: Pueblo’s John Suhay and his photographic legacy,” Colorado Springs Independent, September 23–29, 2004. 14–21.
[3] Candid Miscellaneous: The Photographic Treasures of John Suhay at the White Gallery, Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo, Colo, January 22-May 14, 2004.
[4] Hazlehurst, “Eye of the Lens.”
* Unless noted, all images courtesy of Jina Brenneman.
The Colorado Photo History blog is the online presence for “Outside Influence,” a book project by Rupert Jenkins. Please leave a comment or a suggestion for future posts, and visit @coloradophotohistory on Instagram.
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