Susan Meiselas
American, b. 1948
Susan Meiselas received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and her M.A. in visual education from Harvard University. Her first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs. She photographed the carnivals during three consecutive summers while teaching photography in the New York public schools. CARNIVAL STRIPPERS was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1976. A selection was installed at the Whitney Museum of Art in June 2000. The original book was revised and reprinted by the Whitney Museum and Steidl Verlag in 2003.
Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America, which were published widely throughout the world. In 1981, Pantheon published her second monograph, NICARAGUA, JUNE 1978-JULY 1979 which was reprinted by Aperture, fall 2008.
Meiselas served as an editor and contributor to the book EL SALVADOR: THE WORK OF THIRTY PHOTOGRAPHERS (Writers & Readers, 1983) and edited CHILE FROM WITHIN (W.W. Norton, 1991) featuring work by photographers living under the Pinochet regime. She has co-directed two films: “Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family” (1986) and "Pictures from a Revolution" (1991) with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti. In 1997, she completed a six year project curating a 100 year photographic history of Kurdistan, and integrating her own work into the book entitled KURDISTAN: IN THE SHADOW OF HISTORY (Random House, 1997; reprinted by the University of Chicago Press, 2008). Meiselas then created the website, www.akaKURDISTAN.com, an online archive of collective memory; as well as an exhibition that launched at the Menil Collection in Houston, and traveled for eight years to several venues in the United States and Europe
Her 2001 monograph, PANDORA'S BOX (Magnum Editions/Trebruk) which explores a New York S & M club, has been exhibited both at home and abroad. In 2003, ENCOUNTERS WITH THE DANI was featured as an installation in the International Center of Photography's Triennial "Strangers" and co-published by ICP/Steidl Verlag. The book explores a 60 year history of outsiders’ discovery and interactions with the Dani, an indigenous people of the highlands of Papua in Indonesia.
Meiselas has had one-woman exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Her work is included in American and international collections. Honorary awards of recognition include: the Robert Capa Gold Medal for “outstanding courage and reporting” by the Overseas Press Club for her work in Nicaragua (1979); the Leica Award for Excellence (1982); the Engelhard Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art (1985); the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for her coverage of Latin America (1994); the Hasselblad Foundation Photography prize (1994) and most recently, the Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2005). In 1992, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Education
1970 Bachelor of Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, USA
1971 Master of Arts (Visual Education,) Harvard University, USA
1986 Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, Parsons School of Art, New York, USA
1996 Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Boston, USA
Awards
2005 Cornell Capa Infinity Award, ICP, New York, USA
1995 Rockefeller Foundation, Multi-Media Fellowship
1994 Hasselblad Foundation Photography Prize, Goteborg, Sweden
1994 Maria Moors Cabot Prize, Columbia Journalism School, NY, USA
1992 MacArthur Fellow, USA
1987 Lyndhurst Foundation
1985 Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary Art
1984 Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, USA
1982 Photojournalist of the Year Award from the American Society of Media Photographers
1982 Leica Award for Excellence
1979 Robert Capa Gold Medal, Overseas Press Club
Exhibitions
2008 Susan Meiselas, In History, ICP, New York, USA
2006 Open Eye, Liverpool, UK
2004 Scout Gallery, London, UK
2004 Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, USA
2004 Rose Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2003 FOAM, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2002 Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain
2000 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
1998 Leica Gallery, New York, USA
1994 Hasselblad Center, Goteborg, Sweden
1990 Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
1984 Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
1982 Camerawork, London, UK
1982 Side Gallery, Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK
1981 FNAC Gallery, Paris, France
1977 AM Sachs Gallery, New York, New York, USA
Collections
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA
Hasselblad Center, Sweden
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Birmingham Museum of Art, Al, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SF, USA
The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
St. Louis Museum of Art, USA
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma., USA
University of California, Riverside, USA
Baltimore Museum of Art, USA
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA
International Center of Photography, NYC, USA
Books
2003 Encounters with the Dani, ICP/Steidl Verlag, USA/Germany
2001 Pandora’s Box, Magnum Editions/Trebruk, Denmark
1997 Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Random House, USA
1990 Chile From Within, W.W. Norton, USA
1983 El Salvador: The Work of 30 Photographers, Pantheon, USA
1981 Nicaragua, June 1978 - July 1979, Pantheon, USA
1976/03 Carnival Strippers, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, USA; Steidl, Germany
1975 Learn to See (a collaboration with the Polaroid Corporation), Polaroid Foundation, USA
Films
1991 Pictures from a Revolution, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R.P. Rogers,
distributed by Kino International
1985 Living at Risk, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R. P. Rogers,
distributed by New Yorker Films
Voyages, directed by M. Karlin, writing & photography by Meiselas, produced for
Channel 4, England