Making History
Margaret Bourke-White (born 1904, New York; died 1971, Stamford, CT) was a pioneer in the field of photojournalism, well known for her work capturing architecture and industry, as well as domestic and foreign affairs. Bourke-White received a BA in Biology from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1927. During that time, her interest in photography blossomed, leading her to work for many notable periodicals. She was the first staff photographer at Fortune and the first female staff photographer at Life, which featured her image of Montana’s Fort Peck Dam on the cover of its inaugural issue in November 1936. Over the course of her lifetime, Bourke-White exhibited at institutions worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Gropius Bau, Berlin, among others.
Lee Friedlander (born 1934, Aberdeen, WA; lives New York) is a renowned photographer who captures the complexities of American life through photography. Friedlander studied at the ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA and moved to New York in 1956. His work has appeared in Art in America, Esquire and Sports Illustrated, among many other periodicals. Numerous monographs on his work include The American Monument (Eakins Press Foundation: New York, 1976) and America by Car (D.A.P.: New York, 2010). Friedlander’s photographs are held in many public and private collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, both New York; as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
William Earle Williams (born 1950, Vicksburg, MS; lives Haverford, PA) is the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts and Curator of Photography at Haverford College. His photographs have been exhibited widely in group and solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Smith College, Northampton, MA; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. His work is represented in many public collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; New York Public Library; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Williams has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. His monograph William Earle Williams: Party Pictures was published by The Print Center in 2020.
Making Sense
An-My Lê (born 1960, Vietnam; lives Brooklyn, NY) is a photographer and video artist who examines the consequences of war and the impact of its representation. As a child, she and her family fled Vietnam, eventually settling in the United States as political refugees. Lê earned a BAS and MS in Biology from Stanford University, CA, as well as an MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Lê’s photography and video works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Guggenheim Museum, MoMA PS1, and Whitney Museum of Art, all New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; as well as MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK; Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; and Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver. Lê has been the recipient of an Anonymous Was A Woman Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Award and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Lê’s work can be found in collections nationally, such as the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, both New York; and internationally at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany and Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris. Lê is currently Professor of Photography at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
Michael Mergen (born 1978, Abington, PA; lives Philadelphia, PA) is photographer whose work considers political and civic life in the United States. He earned a BFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Mergen’s work has been featured in publications such as Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine and Time. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and Vero Beach Museum of Art, FL. Mergen’s photographs are held in both public and private collections, including the Zillman Art Museum, University of Maine, Bangor; Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, Farmville, VA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY.
Matthew Shain (born 1978, San Francisco, CA; lives San Francisco) is a photographer whose work explores paradoxical space and collective memory. He received a BS in Journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder, a BFA in Photography from California College of the Arts, Oakland/San Francisco and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, Riverside. Shain has exhibited at Atlanta Contemporary, GA; Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, IL; Barrister’s Gallery, The Front and Ogden Museum of Southern Art, all New Orleans, LA; Aperture Foundation and Humble Arts Foundation, both New York; Riverside Art Museum, CA; and SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA. Shain’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Special Collections of Tomás Rivera Library at University of California, Riverside. His work has been published in Harper’s Ferry Review, New York Magazine and Time Magazine.
Making Presence
Nona Faustine (born 1977, Brooklyn, NY; lives New York) is a photographer and visual artist whose practice critiques colonial histories in photography and the dehumanization of women and black bodies. Faustine earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA from the International Center of Photography at Bard College, both New York. Her “White Shoes” series received international acclaim and was featured in The Guardian, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic and The New York Times. Faustine’s work has been exhibited at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ; Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY; Artspace, New Haven, CT; and the International Center of Photography, Ford Foundation and Steven Kasher Gallery, all New York. Her work is held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA.
Joiri Minaya (born 1990; lives New York) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work deconstructs public perceptions of the female body and multi-cultural identities through performance, photography, mixed-media and installation. Minaya received an AA from both the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales, Santo Domingo and Altos de Chavón School of Design, La Romana, both Dominican Republic, and a BFA from Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York. Minaya has exhibited at Smack Mellon and Trestle Gallery, both Brooklyn, NY; and El Museo del Barrio and New Museum, both New York; as well as Tropiques Atrium, Fort-de-France, Martinique; Centro de la Imagen, Santo Domingo; and the trinidad+tobago Film Festival. She is the recipient of two grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation; an Emerging Artist Grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation; and prizes from the XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, XXVII Biennial at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo and the Centro de la Imagen, Santo Domingo, among other awards and honors.
Marisa Williamson (born 1985, Philadelphia, PA; lives South Orange, NJ) is a performance and video artist who investigates historical narratives around African American and female experiences. She received a BA from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita. Williamson has exhibited with BRIC, Brooklyn, NY; Ruffin Hall Gallery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia, PA; as well as internationally at the Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato and Stefania Miscetti Gallery, Rome, both Italy. Williamson received a Vincent Coffin Grant, University of Hartford; a Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance for Philadelphia Award; and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation YoYoYo Grant, among others.
Making Space
Oliver Curtis (born Bristol, UK; lives London) is a photographer who maintains a balance between film and television cinematography and a fine art practice. Curtis studied Photography at Filton Technical College, Bristol and received a 1st Class (Hons) in Film and Television, London College of Printing. Curtis has worked on over 45 projects for television and film and as Director of Photography on many commercial projects. He is one of the youngest artists to be invited to join the British Society of Cinematographers. Curtis received a BAFTA nomination for his work on Vanity Fair. His fine art series “Volte-Face” premiered at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 2016, and has been written about in Bloomberg, Financial Times Magazine, National Geographic and Wired. The series was published in book form in 2016 (Dewi Lewis Publishing: Stockport, UK).
Mike Osborne (born 1978; lives Austin, TX) is a photographer whose work investigates history, place, technology and other structures of power. He received a BA in English from Stanford University, CA and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. His work has appeared in many publications, such as The New Republic, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Osborne’s work has been published in the monograph Federal Triangle (Gnomic Books: Brooklyn, 2019). He has shown work nationally, including at Big Medium and Lora Reynolds Gallery, both Austin; Signal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas; Aperture Foundation, New York; as well as internationally at IED Madrid; Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany; Head On Photo Festival, Sydney; and Tokyo Art Book Fair. His photographs are held in the collections of The Contemporary Austin; University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Dallas Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Osborne received an Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant, Dallas Museum of Art; a D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship; a Fulbright Scholarship; a Georgetown University Grant; a Fotobookfestival Kassel Dummy Award Shortlist; and a Lucie Photobook Prize.
Kaitlin Pomerantz (born 1986, New York; lives Philadelphia, PA) is a visual artist, writer and educator who uses sculpture, installation, photography and painting to explore the relationship between humans, land and nature. She received a BA in Art History and Visual Art from the University of Chicago and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Pomerantz has exhibited at Warren Wilson College, Asheville, NC; Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY; Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village, NV; Texas Tech Museum, Lubbock; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York; and Monument Lab, Schuylkill Center and Vox Populi, all Philadelphia.
