I am not a traveler. I was born in Kansas City, live in Kansas City and my photographs are mostly of Kansas City. France was not a place I had planned to see. My connection to France was through the photographer Eugène Atget. I loved his pictures and the way he went about the impossible task of photographing Paris. Working in the late 19th and early 20th century, he began by making pictures for others: architects, designers, artists, and historians of the city. His later pictures seem to have been made for himself. While Kansas City is no Paris, I like to think that our paths have been similar.

In 2017, my step-daughter and her family moved to France. That began my trips to France. These pictures are both records and reactions to the things I find special about the place: its beauty, its stillness, its elevation of public spaces to a kind of theater, a kind of art — controlled and wild, active and calming, social and private. 

The paintings, done in Kansas City, are a way to continue thinking about France and Atget. They are based on Atget’s photographs of trees, one of his and my favorite subjects. 

Mike Sinclair, 2024

Photographer Mike Sinclair’s subjects have included state and county fairs, parades, Fourth of July celebrations, parks, amateur musicals, artist’s studios, and the parks, boulevards, sidewalks and architecture of his hometown Kansas City. His most recent book The Paseo & Ward Parkway was self-published in 2022. His 2016 book, The Nelson, looked at Kansas City’s new relationship with its most prestigious institution. His photographs are in several public and private collections including The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Charlotte Street Award.