ROSALIND SOLOMON
American, b. 1930
Solomon was born April 2, 1930 in Highland Park, Illinois. She decided to become a photographer in 1968, at age 38, after traveling in Japan, Thailand and Cambodia, and went on to study with celebrated photography teacher Lisette Model in the early 1970s. In 1986, Solomon was given a one-person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, titled “Ritual.” Organized by Peter Galassi, the show featured photographs of female goddess sculptures and shamans, images that found metaphoric meanings in concrete reality. At the time, Galassi wrote, “For Solomon, the extravagant public theatre of ritual is an expression of private feelings and struggles, which she invites—or compels—the viewer to share. Her ability to do so depends on the keenness of her perceptions and the relentless clarity and detail with which she records them.”
Other important monographic exhibitions of her work include “Chapalingas,” a retrospective covering the years 1975-2001 that was organized by the Photographische Sammlung in Cologne, Germany. It was accompanied by a book of the same title published by Steidl. Solomon has also had solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos, Barcelona, Spain; the Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France; the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; the Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; and the Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin, Germany.
Solomon was the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation award in 1979 for her work in Brazil and Peru, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for 1989, and grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies from 1981 to 1984, which supported a project to photograph in India. She has had residencies at Blue Mountain Center, the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.
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