Dennis Marsico holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and spent seven years in the field before leaving in 1978 to enroll in the graduate architecture program at Carnegie Mellon University. After one year he abandoned architecture for photography.

From 1974, Marsico concentrated on color photography, teaching himself the dye-transfer printmaking process. His 1980 debut exhibition at the Frick Museum, University of Pittsburgh, caught the attention of Eastman Kodak, who sponsored subsequent exhibitions. Work from this period entered the permanent collections of the Corcoran Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Commissions and grants followed: Mellon Bank's Banking and Architecture (1982), and two Graham Foundation grants supporting The Italian Hilltown and the American Main Street Small Town (1984) ( exhibited in Milan and Chicago and recognized as a forerunner of the New Urbanist movement) and a monograph on Italian neorealist architect Giuseppe Terragni, published as Giuseppe Terragni: Vita e Opere (1985).

From 1984 to 2002, Marsico's editorial travel work appeared regularly in Travel & Leisure, Travel Holiday, The New York Times, and Geo, alongside writers Jan Morris, Calvin Trillin, Diane Ackerman, and Saul Bellow. He received two Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, and in 1993 completed a series of 16 international advertisements for Absolut Vodka.

As print journalism declined, Marsico shifted toward handcrafted artist books exploring sexuality, religion, and politics. Under his Dionysus Press imprint, Right Noise and Policing Pleasure (2003) are held in rare book collections at the Whitney Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford, UCLA, and Carnegie Mellon, among others.

His 2005 Mattress Factory installation Passion and Politics introduced encrypted imagery and interactive lighting into his practice, accompanied by three collaboratively produced artist books with poets Jeff Thomson, Terrance Hayes, and Jim Daniels. A second installation, Face Value (2009), shown at the Butler Institute of American Art, extended this approach using enlarged currency engravings with viewer-triggered encrypted messages.

Age-Specific (2012), a boxed set of accordion photo-stories examining physical, mental, and sexual aging, is held in special collections at Stanford, UCLA, the University of Washington, and several other institutions. Selected works were exhibited at the 2013 Armory Show in an installation curated by the Warhol Museum.

Since 2016, Marsico has turned his lens on American democracy, chronicling what he sees as a society's drift toward authoritarianism.

Master Printmaker, 1976 to 1986

  • Personal dye-transfer print lab producing photo-essay for exhibition and collection. The lab was sponsored by Eastman Kodak.

Editorial Photography, 1985 to 2000

  • Feature stories photographer for international travel and architecture publications including; Travel and Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, Life Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Architecture, Geo, Metropolis.

  • Assignments  with accomplished writers; SaulBellow, Jan Morris, Calvin Trillin and Diane Ackerman.

  • 101 feature story photography assignments and 31 magazine covers

Selected Awards

1992

  • Communications Arts, award of excellence

  • The Pacific Asia Travel Association, Special Commendation

  • Society of Publication Designer, feature story award

1993

  • Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, Lowell Thomas Award for best best color photography Paradise photo-essay for Travel Holiday

  • American Photography, photographic excellence award

  • Communication Arts, award of excellence

  • Magazine Week, image of the week

  • National Magazine Award, finalist

  • Society of Publication Designers, 28th Annual award of merit

1994

  • Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, Lowell Thomas Award for best best black and white photography Winter in Tuscany written by Saul Bellow for Travel Holiday

  • Primio Internazionale Barbi Colombini award for the best photography of the Montalcino and Val d’Orcia region of Tuscany

  • Graphis travel photograph awards

Dionysus Press 2002 to 2010

  • Letterpress printed and bound by the artist is a series limited edition books. They are in private, university and museum artist and rare book collections.

  • The Whitney Museum of Art

  • Getty Research Institute

  • The Flaxmann Library of the Art Institute of Chicago

  • University of Pittsburgh

  • Carnegie Mellon

  • UCLA

  • University of Iowa

  • Arizona State University

  • Smithsonian artist book collection

  • Notre Dame University, Devers Program in Dante Studies

  • Stanford University

Photography Grants

  • Eastman Kodak Grant, funding for the artist printing of 34 large format dye-transfer prints, 1982

  • Pittsburgh Foundation, funding for exhibit at the Mattress Factory Museum, 2005

  • Graham Foundation, funding for travel and production of a photo-essay comparing Italian Hilltowns to American Small towns, 1985

  • Graham Foundation, funding for research, travel and photography for a book on the Italian architect Terragni, 1987

Corporate Commissions  and collections

  • Mellon Bank; Commission photography portfolio entitled Banking and Architecture, 17 artist printed dye-transfer prints, 1982

  • PPG Industries; Commission photography portfolio on the PPG Place by Philip Johnson, 1984

Permanent Collections

Carnegie Museum of Art

Heinz Architectural Center

International Center of Photography

Butler Institute of American Art

Centro studi e archivio della comunicazione, Parma

Selected Group Shows

Cityscapes First place award, juried by Duane Michaels, 1982

Gothic Architecture University of Pittsburgh, second place award, juried by the art history faculty, 1983

Expo Arte Fotographia Bari, Italy, 1985

International Exhibition The Center and Archive of Communications, University of Parma, Italy, 1986

Pittsburgh Photography Carnegie Museum of Art, 1987

Marsico and Perrott Blatent Image Gallery (now know as Silver Eye) two person show, 1987

Acquisitions The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington,D.C. 1989

Assignment  Silver Eye Center for Photography, working editorial photographers, 2002

-Keystone.1 Silver Eye Center for Photography inaugural biennial, 2011