John Kimmich's career summary of exhibitions, awards, published works and teaching positions reads like that of any of the great and celebrated giants of photography. That he is barely known to all but the top corporate collectors, museums and publishers should be a wake-up call for the rest of the art world.

From the palaces of Sweden to the pyramids of Egypt and Central America, the photographs of John Kimmich-Javier are eloquent in their simplicity. Even if you think nothing further can be done with an ancient subject, his point of view always seems shockingly novel. When the teeming mosques of Cairo resemble nothing less than Grand Central Terminal, only Kimmich can find a point in time when they're as empty as a moonscape.

The Paris Opera House has graced a million postcards but his photographs of the grand staircase seem completely fresh, as if we're seeing it for the very first time. And all the ghosts of another century have only just taken to their box seats.

His work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, in addition to newspapers in Spain, Finland and Sweden. Museums in Europe and America have hung his work next to that of Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Kimmich-Javier trained as an architect at the University of Illinois in Urbana and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France but his graduate studies at Purdue brought him a masters degree in photography that lead to faculty positions at Columbia College and the Art Institute of Chicago.

IBM bought hundreds of his photographs for their headquarters in White Plains, NY. And acquisitions by the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, and museums in Chicago (Art Institute and Contemporary Photography), California and Sweden ensure that his work is always available for serious scholars.

John is currently associate professor of photography at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His current book, From the Silence to the Light: Photographs of Swedish Architecture and Interiors will be published later this year.