James R. Dean at
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
April 14, 1996
photo by Todd Hunter Strand
James R. Dean was born on April 3, 1948, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He graduated from the high school in Willmar, Minnesota, in 1966; obtained a Bachelor of Architecture degree from North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo in 1971; and became a Registered Architect in 1976. He has worked as an architect in Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota, and in St. Paul and Avon, Minnesota. He also was a photographer for the Dakota Photo Documentary Project during 1976 and has been a freelancer ever since. Discounting numerous hotels, motels, and floors of friends, he has lived in one house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota; three houses in Willmar; one dormitory and one fraternity house at NDSU; one tent in Europe; two apartments in Moorhead, Minnesota; two apartments in Fargo; one VW bus in Europe and northern Africa; another apartment in Fargo; three apartments in Bismarck; two apartments in St. Paul; and one rented cabin in rural Stearns County, Minnesota. He has been arrested twice and married once. He currently lives in and works out of a house he designed for himself and helped to build, just one mile off Interstate 94 in central Minnesota.

Mr. Dean specializes in non-fictional, black and white photographs of people, places and things.

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