He earned his Master's degree in photography from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1968, where he studied with Aaron Siskind. From 1968 to 1969, he taught photography at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Since 1969 he has been a professor of art and photography at Rice University and currently serves as Professor of Art and Master of Wiess College at Rice. He is the recipient of a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant in 1971, Guggenheim fellowships in 1972 and 1978, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in 1975 and 1977. His publications include Friday Night in the Coliseum (Houston, Allison Press, 1971), Going Texan (Houston, Marvis P. Kelsey, Jr., 1972), A Place of Dreams (Houston, Rice University Press, 1986), and In the Eye of the Sun (New York, W. W. Horton, 1997). His films include Friday Night in the Coliseum (1972) and The Pleasures of This Stately Dome (1975). His work is in collections at Museum of Modern Art, New York; International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Harvard University; Princeton University; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Rice University; and Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.

The collection entitled "The Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas: Photographs by Geoff Winningham" was donated to Special Collections by the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 12, 1992.

The photographs in the collection were commissioned by First Federal Savings and Loan of Little Rock and executed by Geoff Winningham in 1980 and 1981. This photographic essay consists of black and white photographs which survey the vernacular architecture of Arkansas. Included are photographs of residences, churches, stores, cabins, garages, barns, businesses, outhouses, and bridges throughout the state.

The collection consists of sixty-eight 16" x 20" matted black and white photographs, four 21" x 25" matted color photographs, ten large-format framed black and white photographs, and the portfolio Of the Soil, Six Classics of Arkansas' Vernacular Architecture, Photographs by Geoff Winningham, which consists of six color prints of selected photographs from the photographic essay.

Find more information at http://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/vernacular.html.