Penelope Umbrico

Biography Intro

Penelope Umbrico utilizes traditional photographic techniques along with various methods of appropriation and reproduction to explore how images are made and used in contemporary culture. Considering the wealth of images on the internet as a collective archive and portrait of society, Umbrico creates a body of work that navigates between consumer and producer, materiality and immateriality, and individual and collective expression.

Umbrico's work has been included in exhibitions at MoMA PS1, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; MassMoCA, MA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Le Mois de Photo a Montreal Photo Festival, Canada; Lodz Photo Festival, Poland; Foto Colectania, Barcelona, Spain; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; Daegu Photography Biennale, Korea; the Pingyao International Photography Festival, China; Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany; Rencontres d’Arles, France; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Australia; Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, NY; International Center of Photography, NY, among many others.

Her work is represented in museum collections including the Guggenheim Museum, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Perez Art Museum Miami, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, Berkeley Museum of Art, CA; and Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Germany.

She is the recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship; a John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award, a Deutsche Bank Fellow/New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, a Peter S Reed Grant; an Anonymous Was A Woman Award; a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; and an Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship.

Her monographs include: Penelope Umbrico (photographs), Aperture (Spring 2011); Range, Aperture (Fall 2014); Out of Order, RVB Books Paris (Fall 2014)

Chronology PDF

Selected Works

Selected Works Thumbnails

Penelope Umbrico

Everyone's Moons Any License, 2019

Archival pigment print

48 x 48 inches

Penelope Umbrico

541,795 Suns (From Sunsets) from Flickr (Partial), 01/23/06, 2006-ongoing

4x6 inch Chromogenic prints, variable allover

Penelope Umbrico

Suns (From Sunsets) from Flickr, 2006-ongoing (installation view)

48 x 96 inches

Penelope Umbrico

Mirrors (from catalogs), 2002-2007

8 x 8 in.

Penelope Umbrico

17 Mirrors (From Home-improvement Websites / Plants, Flowers and Beds), 2001-2011

Unique installation, digital chromogenic prints face mounted to non-glare plexiglass

Approximately 95 x 98 in. (241 x 249 cm)

Penelope Umbrico

Screenshot 2015-11-07 18.34.11 / Pink Filter, 2015

Archival pigment print

40x40 in.

Penelope Umbrico

Screenshot 2015-11-24 18.14.32 / Blue Filter, 2015

Archival pigment print

40x40 in.

Penelope Umbrico

Screenshot 2015-11-04 18.44.53 / Grey Filter, 2015

Archival pigment print

40 x 40 in.

Penelope Umbrico

Screenshot 2015-11-07 18.34.11 / Pink Filter, 2015

Screenshot 2015-11-24 18.14.32 / Blue Filter, 2015

(installation view)

Penelope Umbrico

(Not) Easy Canvases, from Four photographs of Rays of Sunlight in Grand Central Station, Grand Central Terminal, 1903-1913, 1920, 1926, 1928, 1929, 1934, 1937, 1940, 1930-1940, 1935-1941, 1947, or 2010, by John Collier, Philip Gendreau Herbert, Edward Hulton, Kurt Hulton, Edward Lunch, Maxi, Hal Morey, Henry Silberman, Warren and Wetmore Trowbridge, Underwood & Underwood, Unknown, or Anonymous (Courtesy: Associated Press, the author, Bettmann/Corbis, Hal Morey / Getty Images, Getty Images, Hulton Collection, Hulton-Getty, Hutton Collection, New York City Municipal Archives, New York Transit Museum, New York City Parks and Landmarks, Royal Geographical Society, SuperStock/Corbis, Underwood & Underwood, Warren and Wetmore, or Image in Public Domain), 2015

Penelope Umbrico

Sunset Portraits from 33,720,197 Sunset Pictures on Flickr on 08/07/17, 2017

Chromogenic prints, each 4 x 6 inches

48 x 48 inches overall

Penelope Umbrico

For Sale / Televisions from Craiglist, 2008-2011

Digital c-prints mounted to aluminum

Thirty-five unique elements; 11" x 17" each

Penelope Umbrico

Moving Mountains (1850-2012): of Aperture Masters of Photography 87 digital c-prints, each 4” x 4”, 6” x 8”, 8” x 8”, 8” x 10”, 8” x 12”, overall dimension 55” x 118”