# Elizabeth Heyert

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**Elizabeth Heyert** (born 1951 in [New York City](/source/New_York_City)) is an American [photographer](/source/Photographer) and author. She received her master's degree in photography and the history of photography from the [Royal College of Art](/source/Royal_College_of_Art), London, where she studied with [Bill Brandt](/source/Bill_Brandt). She is known for experimental portrait photography, most notably her trilogy *The Sleepers* (2003), *The Travelers* (2005), and *The Narcissists* (2008), and her groundbreaking project *The Bound* (2016).

Heyert is the author of numerous books of and about photography including *The Glass-House Years* (Allanheld and Schram, 1979), *Metropolitan Places* (Viking Studio Books, 1989), *The Sleepers* (Sei Swann, 2003), and *The Travelers* (Scalo Verlag, 2006), *The Narcissists* (Silvana Editoriale, 2008) and *The Outsider* (Damiani 2017).

## Career

After shooting around the world for publications such as *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)*, *[New York Magazine](/source/New_York_Magazine)*, *[Vogue](/source/Vogue_(magazine))* and *[British Vogue](/source/British_Vogue)*, *[Elle Decor](/source/Elle_Decor)*, and *[Architectural Digest](/source/Architectural_Digest)*, and for clients including [Ralph Lauren](/source/Ralph_Lauren), [Cartier](/source/Cartier_SA), [American Express](/source/American_Express), and [Tiffany & Co.](/source/Tiffany_%26_Co.) her successful career allowed her to close her commercial studio in 1999, to return to a more personal exploration of photography. She began *The Sleepers* with the idea of experimenting with unconventional forms of portrait photography. Within three years she was offered her first one-person show of these works, which opened at the Edwynn Houk gallery in New York, in January 2003. *The Sleepers*, a series of monumental toned black and white photographs of sleeping nudes, is a meditation on the mystical world of sleep and the emotional journey we travel in our unconscious state. Reviewing the exhibit *The New Yorker* wrote that the work: "conjures thoughts of human fragility and impermanence even if the sleepers have become heroic sculptures rising from a deep slumber.[1]" Sei Swann published a monograph of *The Sleepers*, with an essay inspired by the works, written by the playwright [John Guare](/source/John_Guare), in January 2003.

Heyert's obsession with sleep and the unconscious led her inevitably to photograph *The Travelers*, a series of large-scale color post-mortem portraits. The photographs stirred discussion and controversy when they were first exhibited in New York. The New York Times, in a feature article about the works, described these photographs as a "peek beneath the surface at the vibrant, living face beneath the mask of death.[2]" Scalo Verlag published her book, *The Travelers*, in March 2006. At the end of the year Photo-Eye Magazine named *The Travelers* one of the best photography books of 2006.[3]

The 30 x 40 inch photographs have been widely exhibited internationally: at the [Musée de l'Élysée](/source/Mus%C3%A9e_de_l'%C3%89lys%C3%A9e) in [Lausanne](/source/Lausanne), Switzerland; at the [Hayward Gallery](/source/Hayward_Gallery) in London; in Austria in *New Art/New York: Reflections of the Human Condition*; and in a solo museum show at the Malmo Museer in Sweden. In May 2007, 18 life size prints of *The Travelers* were exhibited on a small island in [Naarden, The Netherlands](/source/Naarden,_The_Netherlands), accessible only through an ancient stone tunnel, as part of an exhibition entitled*In Memoriam*. The works have also been the subject of television programs by ARD Kulturweltspiegel in Germany and by [TVE Spain](/source/TVE_Spain), a [National Public Radio](/source/National_Public_Radio) program, and feature articles in *[Sueddeutsche Zeitung](/source/Sueddeutsche_Zeitung)*, *[El Mundo](/source/El_Mundo_(Spain))*, in the Swiss publications *Le Temps* and *Femina*, and *Vrij Nederland* among others.

Heyert's work has been extensively reviewed and discussed in leading international publications such as *The New York Times*, the *Times* of London, *[Le Monde](/source/Le_Monde)*, and *[Stern](/source/Stern_(magazine))* and in contemporary publications such as *The Drawbridge* and *Dazed* and *Confused*. Her photographs are part of the permanent collections of the [Metropolitan Museum of Art](/source/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art) and the [San Francisco Museum of Modern Art](/source/San_Francisco_Museum_of_Modern_Art), [the J. Paul Getty Museum](/source/The_J._Paul_Getty_Museum), and the Beinecke Library of Rare Books, and Manuscripts at [Yale](/source/Yale) as well as numerous private collections.

Her most recent projects include *The Bound* (2016), which explores the body as a site for experimentation and transformation, and *The Outsider* (2017), a conceptual photography project shot in China. She is currently at work on *The Idol*, a new series that explores religion and popular culture, and the ways society creates myths and false images about women.[4]

## References

1. *The New Yorker*, February 3, 2003

1. *The New York Times*, Bringing Back the Dead, Photographer Captures Undertakers Art, February 16, 2004, Alan Feuer

1. *Photo-Eye* Magazine, Booklist, Best Books of 2006, April, 2007, Darius Himes

1. ["An Interview with Elizabeth Heyert: The Idol"](http://museemagazine.com/culture/2019/3/21/an-interview-with-elizabeth-heyert-the-idol). *Musée Magazine*. Retrieved 2019-05-02.

## Books

- *The Glass-House Years* (1979) ISBN 0-86043-199-1
- *Metropolitan Places* (1989) ISBN 0-670-81743-0
- *The Sleepers* (2003) ISBN 1-56466-105-9
- *The Travelers* (2006) ISBN 3-908247-93-4
- *The Narcissists* (2008) ISBN 978-0-615-28012-7
- *The Outsider* (2017) ISBN 978-88-6208-544-1

## External links

- [elizabethheyert.com](http://www.elizabethheyert.com/)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20081206160841/http://www.houkgallery.com/heyert-travellers/heyert.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20081206160841/http://www.houkgallery.com/heyert-travellers/heyert.html)
- [*Kind Assassin*, Essay by John Guare, *The Sleepers*](https://web.archive.org/web/20090430081006/http://www.elizabethheyert.com/conversations-and-essays/the-sleepers-kind-assassin/)
- [Interview by Stacey D'Erasmo, *The Sleepers*](https://web.archive.org/web/20090429042254/http://www.elizabethheyert.com/conversations-and-essays/the-sleepers)
- [Interview by Stacey D'Erasmo,*The Travelers*](https://web.archive.org/web/20090429042451/http://www.elizabethheyert.com/conversations-and-essays/the-travelers)
- [The New York Times, Bringing Back the Dead](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/nyregion/16bodies.html?ex=1392354000&en=c7d62cbb80c34719&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND)

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