Women in photography
Encyclopedia
Women have made significant contributions to photography since its inception.
Notable female photographers
- Berenice AbbottBerenice AbbottBerenice Abbott , born Bernice Abbott, was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.-Youth:...
1898-1991 - Karimeh AbbudKarimeh AbbudKarimeh Abbud , also known as the "Lady Photographer", was a professional photographer and artist who lived and worked in Lebanon and Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. -Early life:...
1896-1955 - Heather AngelHeather Angel (photographer)Heather Hazel Angel MSc is a British nature photographer, author and television presenter...
1941- - Eleanor AntinEleanor AntinEleanor Antin is an American photographer, author, and artist working with video, film, performance, and drawing. Originally from New York, USA, she is currently based in Southern California where she is a professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego...
1935- - Diane ArbusDiane ArbusDiane Arbus March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid.....
1923-1971 - Eve ArnoldEve ArnoldEve Arnold, FRPS is an American photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957....
1913- - Anna AtkinsAnna AtkinsAnna Atkins was an English botanist and photographer. She is often considered the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Some sources claim that she was the first woman to create a photograph.-Early life:Anna Children was born in Tonbridge, Kent, England in 1799...
1799-1871 - Alice AustenAlice AustenElizabeth Alice Austen was a Staten Island photographer.-Early years:Alice's father abandoned the family before she was born, and she was baptized under the name Elizabeth Alice Munn on May 23, 1866, in St. John's Church on Staten Island...
1866-1952 - Tina BarneyTina BarneyTina Barney is an American artist photographer best known for her large-scale portraits of her family and close friends, many of whom are well-to-do denizens of New York and New England....
1945- - Hilla Becher 1934- (of the husband and wife team Bernd and Hilla BecherBernd and Hilla BecherBernard "Bernd" Becher , and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser , were German artists working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures.- Biography :Bernd Becher was born in Siegen...
) - Ruth BernhardRuth BernhardRuth Bernhard was an American photographer.-Early life:Bernhard was born in Berlin and studied at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1925–27. Bernhard's father, Lucian Bernhard, was known for his poster and typeface design.-Photography career:In 1927 Bernhard moved to New York City, where her...
1905-2006 - Margaret Bourke-WhiteMargaret Bourke-WhiteMargaret Bourke-White was an American photographer and documentary photographer. She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet Industry, the first female war correspondent and the first female photographer for Henry Luce's Life magazine, where her...
1906-1971 - Lola Álvarez BravoLola Alvarez BravoLola Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer. She was a key figure in Mexico's post-revolution renaissance....
1907-1993 - Esther BubleyEsther BubleyEsther Bubley was an American photographer who specialized in expressive photos of ordinary people in everyday lives.-Biography:...
1921-1998 - Marion CarpenterMarion CarpenterMarion A. Carpenter, also known as Marion Anderson , was the first woman national press photographer to cover Washington, D.C. and the White House, and to travel with a US President. She broke the gender role stereotype in the 1940s but left Washington in 1949 after her second marriage.After...
, 1920-2002. The first female National Press Photographer to cover Washington, D.C., the White House and travel with a US President. - Claude CahunClaude CahunClaude Cahun was a French artist, photographer and writer. Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender and sexuality.-Early life:...
1894-1954 - Sophie CalleSophie CalleSophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines...
1953- - Julia Margaret CameronJulia Margaret CameronJulia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....
1815-1879 - Elinor CarucciElinor CarucciElinor Carucci is an Israeli-American photographer.-Early life:She was born in Jerusalem where she served in the Israeli Army for two years from 1989–1991, and received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in 1995. She lives and works in New York City and is a member of the Faculty...
1971- - Carolyn ColeCarolyn ColeCarolyn Cole is a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2004, for her coverage of the siege of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.-Biography:...
1961- - Marie CosindasMarie CosindasMarie Cosindas is an American photographer. She is best known for her evocative still life and colour portraits.-Biography:...
1925- - Imogen CunninghamImogen CunninghamImogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry.-Life and career:...
1883-1976 - Louise Dahl-WolfeLouise Dahl-WolfeLouise Emma Augusta Dahl was a noted American photographer. She is known primarily for her work for Harper's Bazaar, in association with fashion editor Diana Vreeland.-Background:...
1895-1989 - Lynn Davis 1944-
- Anna FoxAnna FoxAnna Fox is a British photographer. She studied at Farnham, Surrey, and first came to attention with her 1988 documentary study of London office life on the mid-1980s, Work Stations: Office Life in London, published by the left-wing Camerawork...
1961- - Mary FitzpatrickMary Fitzpatrick (photographer)Mary Fitzpatrick is a photographer. Born in England Fitzpatrick is known for her images of spaces abandoned after conflict. In 2004 she exhibited images of post Gulf War Kuwait - 'Failaka' as part of the 'Streets of Desire' Exhibition curated by Jump Ship Rat at the Blade Factory, Greenland...
1968- - Gisèle FreundGisèle FreundGisèle Freund was a German-born French photographer, famous for her documentary photography and portraits of writers and artists. Her best-known book is Photographie et société , about the uses and abuses of the photographic medium.-Early life:Freund was born near Berlin to a wealthy Jewish family...
1908-2000 - Eva FukaEva FukaEva Fuka-Engle is an American photographer. She was born in 1927 in Prague, Czechoslovakia.In 1942, she attended the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague under Professor Rudolf Skopec, and later studied at the Academy of Visual Arts, from 1945 to 1950. She married fellow-artist Vladimir Fuka in...
1927- - Anne GeddesAnne GeddesAnne Geddes, MNZM, is an Australian-born photographer, clothing designer and businesswoman who now lives and works in New Zealand. She is known for her stylized depictions of babies and motherhood. Typical images show babies or young children dressed as fairies and fairytale creatures, flowers, or...
1956- - Wilda Gerideau-SquiresWilda Gerideau-SquiresWilda Gerideau-Squires, born June 21, 1946, is an African-American fine art photographer noted for her distinctive style of photography which includes abstract images created through the interplay of fabric and light, as well as her poignant photographs of women...
1946- - Laura GilpinLaura GilpinLaura Gilpin was an American photographer known for her photographs of Native Americans, particularly the Navajo and Pueblo, and her Southwestern landscapes.-Life:...
1891-1979 - Nan GoldinNan GoldinNancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
1953- - Katy GrannanKaty GrannanKaty Grannan is an American portrait photographer.Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and is in public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art...
1969- - Jacqueline HassinkJacqueline HassinkJacqueline Hassink is a New York-based international conceptual artist who works primarily in photography and film.Born in the Netherlands in 1966, Hassink is most known for her global photo art projects that deal with the world of economic power...
1966- - Masumi HayashiMasumi Hayashi (photographer)Dr. Masumi Hayashi was an American photographer and artist who taught art at Cleveland State University, in Cleveland, Ohio, for 24 years...
1945-2006 - HiromixHiromix, better known as Hiromix , is a Japanese photographer and artist.-Biography:Born in 1976, Hiromix rose to fame in Japan after winning the 11th New Cosmos of Photography award, hosted by the photographic manufacturer Canon, in March 1995. Hiromix was nominated by Nobuyoshi Araki, one of Japan's...
1976- - Hannah HochHannah HöchHannah Höch was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage.-Biography:...
1889-1978 - Candida HöferCandida HöferCandida Höfer is a Cologne, Germany-based photographer and a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students – Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth – Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly Conceptual approach...
1944- - Martha Holmes 1923-2006
- Roni HornRoni HornRoni Horn is an American visual artist and writer. Horn's oeuvre, which spans almost four decades, encompasses sculpture, drawing, photography, language, and site-specific installation. The granddaughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, she was born in New York and lives and works in New York...
1955- - Miyako IshiuchiMiyako Ishiuchi, is a renowned Japanese photographer.Ishiuchi has produced collections of photography since the late 1970s. Her first book was a study of Yokosuka, where she grew up....
1947- - Lotte JacobiLotte JacobiJohanna Alexandra Jacobi was a German photographer, who immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi Germany....
1896-1990 - Frances Benjamin JohnstonFrances Benjamin JohnstonFrances "Fannie" Benjamin Johnston was one of the earliest American female photographers and photojournalists.- Life :...
1864-1952 - Gertrude KäsebierGertrude KäsebierGertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...
1852-1934 - Rinko KawauchiRinko KawauchiRinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer, shooting mostly in 6×6 format. Her work is characterized by a serene, poetic style, depicting the ordinary moments in life....
1972- - Dorothea LangeDorothea LangeDorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
1895-1965 - Nikki S. LeeNikki s. leeNikki Seung-hee Lee is a Korean American New York City-based artist and filmmaker. After earning B.F.A. at Chung-Ang University in South Korea in 1993, she moved to New York in 1994 and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. She earned her M.A...
1970- - Annie LeibovitzAnnie LeibovitzAnna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
1949- - Zoe Leonard 1961-
- Helen LevittHelen LevittHelen Levitt was an American photographer. She was particularly noted for "street photography" around New York City, and has been called "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time."- Biography :...
1907-2009 - Ruth Harriet LouiseRuth Harriet LouiseRuth Harriet Louise was an American professional photographer, the first woman photographer active in Hollywood; she ran Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's portrait studio from 1925 to 1930.-Career:...
1903-1940 - Markéta LuskačováMarkéta LuskacováMarkéta Luskačová is a Czech photographer known for her series of photographs taken in Slovakia, Britain and elsewhere. Considered one of the best Czech social photographers to date, since the 1990s she has photographed children in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and also Poland.- Biography :In 1968...
1944- - Loretta LuxLoretta LuxLoretta Lux was born in Dresden, East Germany and is a fine art photographer known for her surreal portraits of young children. She currently lives and works in Monaco....
1969- - Vivian MaierVivian MaierVivian Maier was an American amateur street photographer who was born in New York but grew up in France, and after returning to the U.S., worked for about forty years as a nanny in Chicago...
1926-2009 - Sally MannSally MannSally Mann is an American photographer, best known for her large black-and-white photographs—at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death.-Early life and education:...
1951- - Mary Ellen MarkMary Ellen MarkMary Ellen Mark is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, portraiture, and advertising photography. She has had 16 collections of her work published and has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including three Robert F...
1940- - Kate MatthewsKate MatthewsKate Seston Matthews was a photographer who depicted tableaux vivants and scenes of everyday life in her community of Pewee Valley, Kentucky, at the turn of the 20th century.- Early life :...
1870-1956 - Linda McCartneyLinda McCartneyLinda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney was an American photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her father and mother were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner Eastman....
1942-1998 - Wendy McMurdoWendy McMurdoWendy McMurdo is a British artist who specialises in photography and digital media. She attended Edinburgh College of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where she first became interested in photography.-Career:Her work centres around the relationship...
1962- - Susan MeiselasSusan MeiselasSusan Meiselas is an American documentary photographer. She has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1976 and a full member since 1980. Her works have been published in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Times, Time, Geo and Paris Match...
1948- - Hansel MiethHansel MiethHansel Mieth was a German-born photojournalist who worked on the staff of LIFE Magazine. She was best known for her social commentary photography which recorded the lives of working class Americans in the 1930s and 1940s....
1909-1998 - Lee MillerLee MillerElizabeth 'Lee' Miller, Lady Penrose was an American photographer. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1907, she was a successful fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris where she became an established fashion and fine art photographer...
1907-1977 - Lisette ModelLisette ModelLisette Model was an Austrian-born American photographer.Lisette Model was born Elise Felic Amelie Stern in Vienna, Austria...
1906-1983 - Tina ModottiTina ModottiTina Modotti was an Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.- Early life :Modotti was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Friuli, Italy...
1896-1942 - Lucia MoholyLucia MoholyLucia Moholy, born Lucia Schulz, was a photographer and first wife of artist and fellow photographer László Moholy-Nagy.- Biography :...
1894-1989 - Inge MorathInge MorathIngeborg Morath was an Austrian-born photographer. In 1953 she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with them in 1955...
1923-2002 - Barbara MorganBarbara Morgan (photographer)Barbara Morgan was an American photographer best known for her work in dance. She was a co-founder of the photography magazine Aperture.- Biography :...
1900-1992 - Shirin NeshatShirin NeshatShirin Neshat شیرین نشاط is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography.-Background:Neshat's parents were upper middle-class...
1957- - Catherine OpieCatherine OpieCatherine Opie is an American artist specializing in issues within documentary photography. Throughout her work she has investigated aspects of community, making portraits of many groups including LGBT community; surfers; and most recently high school football players. She is also interested in...
1961- - Ruth OrkinRuth OrkinRuth Orkin was an American photographer, filmmaker and a late member of the Photo League. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Orkin married photographer and filmmaker Morris Engel....
1921-1985 - Sylvia PlachySylvia PlachySylvia Plachy is a Hungarian/American photographer.Plachy was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her Czech Jewish mother was in hiding in fear of Nazi persecution during World War II. Her father was a Hungarian Roman Catholic aristocrat and she was raised in his faith.Plachy's family moved to New York...
1943- - Melanie PullenMelanie PullenMelanie Pullen is a photographer who currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CaliforniaPullen's work has been exhibited internationally, including solo-shows at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles and Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills; White Wall Gallery, Seoul; MiCamera, Milan...
1975- - Bettina RheimsBettina RheimsBettina Rheims is a French artist and photographer. She is the daughter of Maurice Rheims, of the French Academy. Her sister Nathalie is an actress, writer and film producer...
1952- - Leni RiefenstahlLeni RiefenstahlHelene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
1902-2003 - Grace RobertsonGrace RobertsonGrace Robertson, OBE, is a Scottish photographer who was born in Manchester, England in 1930.After leaving school she looked after her mother who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Robertson's father gave her a second-hand camera in 1949 and the following year she had a photo story about her...
1930- - Ruth RobertsonRuth RobertsonRuth Agnes McCall Robertson Marietta was an American photojournalist known most for photographing Angel Falls in Venezuela and surveying them to establish them as the tallest waterfalls in the world.-Associations:...
1905-1998 - Barbara RosenthalBarbara RosenthalBarbara Rosenthal is an American avant-garde artist and writer. Her existential themes have contributed to contemporary art and philosophy...
1948- - Cindy ShermanCindy ShermanCindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
1954- - Shima RyūShima Ryuwas a Japanese artist and pioneering photographer. Originally from Kiryū, in what is now Gunma Prefecture, she studied at an art school in Edo where she met Shima Kakoku , a fellow student. The two married in 1855 and soon began moving about the Kantō region, possibly exhibiting their works along...
1823-1899 - Mieko ShiomiMieko Shiomiwas a Japanese amateur photographer.Shiomi joined the Tampei Photography Club in 1948, and thereafter joined two other photography groups while also exhibiting in the Nikakai Photography Section...
1909-1984 - Lorna SimpsonLorna SimpsonLorna Simpson is an African American artist and photographer who made her name in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as Guarded Conditions and Square Deal. Her work often portrays black women combined with text to express contemporary society's relationship with race, ethnicity and sex...
1960- - Annegret Soltau 1946-
- Hilda SjölinHilda SjölinHilda Sjölin , was a Swedish photographer, likely the first professional woman pioneer photographer in her country.Sjölin was raised in Malmö as one of four daughters. On 24 May 1860 she advertised in Malmö that she performed photography on glass, waxcanvas and paper, and by February 1861, she...
1835-1915 - Sandy SkoglundSandy SkoglundSandy Skoglund is an American photographer and installation artist.Skoglund creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected small children and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set,...
1946- - Jo SpenceJo SpenceJo Spence was a British photographer. Many of her works were self portraits about her own fight with breast cancer.Spence was born of working class parents in London, 1934...
1934-1992 - Rose TangRose TangRose Tang is the pseudonym of an ambiguously-gendered,semi-fictional artistic personality based on Taiwanese-bornarchitect, biologist and zoologist Zheng Guoyang, under the art directionof French-born founder of the island6 Arts Center,Thomas Charvériat....
1967- - Anya TeixeiraAnya TeixeiraAnya Teixeira was a street photographer and photojournalist.Teixeira's family escaped the Russian Revolution through a rescue mounted by her uncle Morris Gest, a New York impresario. The family settled in Berlin in 1924 so as to be near at hand for the expected overthrow of the Bolshevik regime...
1913-1992 - Gerda TaroGerda TaroGerda Taro was born into a Polish Jewish family living in Germany. She became a war photographer, and the companion and professional partner of photographer Robert Capa...
1910-1937 - Joyce TennesonJoyce TennesonJoyce Tenneson is an American fine art photographer known for her distinctive style of photography, which often involves nude or semi-nude women. Tenneson shoots primarily with the Polaroid 20x24 camera...
1945- - Doris UlmannDoris UlmannDoris Ulmann was an American photographer, best known for her dignified portraits of the people of Appalachia, particularly craftsmen and musicians such as Jean Ritchie's family, made between 1928 and 1934.-Life and career:...
1884-1934 - Carrie Mae WeemsCarrie Mae WeemsCarrie Mae Weems is an award-winning photographer and artist. Her photographs, films, and videos have been displayed in over 50 exhibitions in the United States and abroad and focus on serious issues that face African Americans today, such as racism, gender relations, politics, and personal identity...
1953- - Linda WolfLinda WolfLinda Wolf, is an American-born photographer and writer, and founder of the nonprofit organization Teen Talking Circles . She is the daughter of poet Barbara Wolf, and 1940's cinematographer Joe Wolf...
1950- - Marion Post WolcottMarion Post WolcottMarion Post was a noted photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty and deprivation. She was born in New Jersey. Her parents split up and she was sent to boarding school, spending time at home with her mother in Greenwich Village...
1910-1990 - Francesca WoodmanFrancesca WoodmanFrancesca Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring herself and female models. Many of her photographs show young women who are nude, who are blurred , who are merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured...
1958-1981 - Catherine YassCatherine YassCatherine Yass is an English artist.Catherine Yass was born in 1963 in London and in her early years lived in Hampstead. She later studied at the Slade School of Art, London and then at Hochschule der Künste, Berlin...
1963- - Alison Galea Valletta 1987-
- Madame YevondeYevondeYevonde Cumbers Middleton was an English photographer, who pioneered the use of colour in portrait photography...
1893-1975