Rosalind Solomon

Rosalind Fox Solomon
Born	Rosalind Fox (1930-04-02)April 2, 1930 Highland Park, Illinois
Nationality	American
Known for	Artist
Spouse(s)	Joel W. (Jay) Solomon (1921–1984; divorced; 2 children)

Rosalind Fox Solomon is a photographer who works on self assigned projects. She lives and works in New York.

Her work is in many public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. The University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography acquired her archive in 2007, which includes her photographic archive, books and video work.

Education

Solomon graduated from Highland Park High School in 1947. She attended Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1951. She then sailed to Belgium and France with The Experiment in International Living.

She studied intermittently with Lisette Model from 1971 to 1977.

In 2011, Goucher College awarded Solomon the honorary degree, Doctor of Fine Arts.

Before photography

Later Solomon became the Southern Regional Director of the Experiment in International Living. In this capacity, she visited communities throughout the Southern United States, recruiting families to host international guests and interact with other cultures in a personal way.[5]

In August 1963, Solomon traveled to Washington, D.C. for an interview with the Equal Employment Department of the Agency for International Development, which was then establishing a program for part-time recruiter-consultants in various regions of the United States. Solomon and a group of USAID staff including Roger Wilkins (nephew of Roy Wilkins) joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Subsequently, in her work for USAID, Solomon traveled to historically black colleges in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee where she spoke to students and faculty about overseas employment opportunities.

Photography

In 1968 Solomon's volunteer work with the Experiment in International Living brought her to Japan where she stayed with a family near Tokyo. There, at age 38, Solomon began to use an instamatic camera to communicate her feelings and thoughts. This was the starting point for her photography practice, which also includes prose related to her life experiences.

Upon her return to the United States, Solomon photographed regularly. She purchased a Nikkormat in 1969 and in the garden shed she processed 35mm black and white film and printed her first pictures. In 1971, she began intermittent studies with Lisette Model during visits to New York City. By 1974 she was using a medium format camera. Dolls and manikins were some of her first subjects, along with portraits and rituals. She works with black-and-white film exclusively.

In 1975, Solomon began photographing at the Baroness Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She photographed people recovering from operations, wounds, and illness.

In early 1977, Solomon photographed William Eggleston, his family and friends in Tennessee and Mississippi. Solomon moved to Washington where she photographed artists and politicians for the series "Outside the White House" in 1977 and 1978.

In 1978 and 1979, she also photographed in the highlands of Guatemala. Her interest in how people cope with adversity, led her to witness a shaman’s rites and a funeral and made photographs in Easter processions.

In 1980 she was award a Guggenheim Fellowship, recommended by John Szarkowski and Lisette Model.

File:Ancash, Peru, 1981.jpg

Ancash, Peru, 1981

In 1980, Solomon began her work in Ancash, Peru where she returned intermittently for over 20 years. She made photographs in cemeteries where the damage of a 1970 earthquake was still apparent. She continued photographing shamans, cemeteries, funerals and other rituals. She also photographed people of a subsistence economy surviving the extremes of life through Catholic, evangelist, and indigenous rites.

With a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, in 1981 Solomon began photographing festival rites in India. She found an expression of female energy and power in the forms of the goddess figures created in the sculptors’ communities of Kolkata (Calcutta). In 1982 and 1983, she continued this work. While there, she photographed artists, including the painter, Ganesh Pyne and the filmmaker, Satyagit Ray. She also made portraits of the Dalai Lama and photographed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

1987 - 1988, Solomon photographed people with AIDS alone and with their families and lovers. The project resulted in the exhibition, Portraits in the Time of AIDS at the Grey Gallery of Art of New York University in 1988.

In 1988, with concerns about the rise of ethnic violence in the world, she made her first trip to Poland. In 2003, she returned to work again in Poland. In 1988 Solomon’s interest in race relations and ethnic violence, took her to Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa. She continued the project in 1989 and 1990 in Northern Ireland and South Africa. In the nineties, she visited hospitals in Yugoslavia and rehabilitation centers for victims of mines in Cambodia, and photographed victims of the American/Vietnam War near Hanoi.

Solomon photographed in Israel and the West Bank for five months during 2010 and 2011, part of This Place, produced by Frédéric Brenner. She made portraits of people in Israel and the West Bank. She was photographing Palestinians in Jenin, and happened to be only a few minutes away when Israeli-Palestinian actor and director of the Freedom Theater, Juliano Mer Khamis, was gunned down in April 2011.

Publications

• John Szarkowski. Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. Catalog of Exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, 1978.
• Rosalind Solomon: Earthrites. Museum of Photographic Arts, 1986.
• Wanderlust. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1987.
• Rosalind Solomon: Portraits in the Time of AIDS. New York: Grey Art Gallery & Studio Center, New York University, 1988.
• Rosalind Solomon: Photographs, 1976-1987. Tucson, Arizona: Etherton Gallery, 1988.
• Susan Kismaric. American Children: Photographs from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY, 1980.
• Susan Kismaric. American Politicians: Photographs 1843-1993. Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY, 1994.
• El Peru y Otros Lugares – Peru and Other Places. Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima, 1996.
• Chapalingas. Göttingen: Steidl, 2003.
• Vincent Gerard and Cedric Laty. Eggleston on Film. 85 minutes. 2005
• Americans: The Social Landscape from 1940 until 2006. Masterpieces of American Photography. Damiani/Kunsthalle Wien, 2006.
• Polish Shadow. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006.
• Them. London: Mack, 2014. ISBN 9781910164013.
• Got to Go. London: Mack, 2016. ISBN 9781910164198.

Solo exhibitions

2

Group exhibitions

2

External links

• Aperture Foundation: Center for Creative Photography Acquires the Rosalind Solomon Archive. April 10, 2007.
• Nicephore Niepce Museum Exhibition: Rosalind Solomon | American photographies 1974-2001.
• Rosalind Solomon Official Website
• Wehr, Anne: Time Out New York / Issue 629. Oct 18–24, 2007
• Women Photographers: UCR/ California Museum of Photography.
• Aletti, Vince. "Model citizens". The New Yorker. September 3, 2007.
• Bruce Silverstein Gallery
• The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona has released a digital catalog of Solomon's photograph collection.