Tony Mendoza is a Cuban-American photographer. He was born in Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

, Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, and moved to Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

 with his family in 1960. He graduated from Yale

YALE

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  with a Bachelor of Engineering

Bachelor of Engineering

The Bachelor of Engineering is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at universities in Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland , Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Korea,...

 and Harvard with a Master of Architecture

Master of Architecture

The Master of Architecture is a professional degree in architecture, qualifying the graduate to move through the various stages of professional accreditation that result in receiving a license.-Overview:...

, before becoming a full time photographic artist in 1973. Married to Maria del Carmen from Esperanza, Cuba, and they have two children Alex and Lydia.

Mendoza has received three National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 Fellowships, a Guggenheim

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 Photography Fellowship as well as two Creative Writing fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council. His photographs have featured in many major museums.

His most famous book, Ernie, is a photographic memoir centered around a cat he encountered when he moved in to an apartment in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Mendoza is currently an instructor of photography at the Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

 in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

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External links

• Tony Mendoza's web site
• Online retrospective show
• Ohio State faculty web site
• Selected art by Tony Mendoza
• A site dedicated to the book "Ernie : a photographer's memoir"
• NYT book review
• Tony Mendoza on En Foco, Inc.; featured in Nueva Luz photographic journal, volume 1#1 (1984).
• Recent Photographic Exhibitition