Wayne Sorce was born in 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. He earned both a BFA and an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1969 and 1971. He started photographing people and their homes in 1966 after years as a liturgical artist. Later, he worked as a freelance reporter specializing in photographic essays and taught photography at Columbia College and the Art Institute of Chicago. To continue working with photography, he moved to New York and the Philippines after Chicago.
He explored the urban landscapes of New York and Chicago during the 1970s and ’80s with his large-format camera, using color and geometry to create compositions that also reflected the era’s signs, advertisements, and automobile design.
Sorce had a solo exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago in 1972. His photographs have also been exhibited at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
