Lois Conner

{{short description|American photographer|bot=PearBOT 5}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Lois Conner  | honorific_suffix = | image =  | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1951}} | birth_place = New York City | baptised =  | death_date =  | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | education = BFA photography, Pratt Institute, 1975<br />MFA photography, Yale University, 1981 | alma_mater = | known_for = platinum print landscapes | notable_works = | style = | home_town = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | awards = John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grants, 1984 and 1985<br />National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship<br />Anonymous Was a Woman Fellowship | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = {{URL|loisconner.net}} | module = }}

'''Lois Conner''' (born 1951) is an American photographer. She is noted particularly for her platinum print landscapes that she produces with a 7" x 17" format banquet camera.

==Early life== Conner was born in New York City in 1951<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite web |title=Lois Conner {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/lois-conner-970 |website=americanart.si.edu}}</ref> and grew up in southern Pennsylvania.<ref name="lens" /> She dedicated herself to the arts from a young age: learning about photography from her father at 9 years old,<ref name="shine">{{cite news |last1=Xiaolin |first1=Liu |title=US photographer can't get enough of China |url=https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1804153099/ |access-date=27 March 2021 |work=SHINE |date=April 15, 2018 |language=en}}</ref> apprenticing with a painter as a teenager, and later studying fashion design and taking dance, art, and photography classes in New York City.<ref name="lens" /> Conner credits Philippe Halsman, her photography teacher at The New School, for her ultimately choosing to study photography.<ref name="lens" />

==Education== Lois Conner received her BFA in photography from the Pratt Institute.<ref name="info" /> At Yale University, where she received her MFA in 1981,<ref name="info" /> she met and studied with Tod Papageorge and Richard Benson.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Yin |first1=Sharon |title=Art professor Papageorge to receive Lucie Award for photography |url=https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/10/04/art-professor-papageorge-to-receive-lucie-award-for-photography/ |access-date=27 March 2021 |work=yaledailynews.com |publisher=Yale |date=October 4, 2012 |language=en}}</ref> She moved to New York City in 1971 where she worked for the United Nations until 1984.<ref name="yale" /><ref name="lens" />

==Exhibitions== The Sackler Gallery in Washington (National Museum of Art) presented a retrospective of her work, ''Landscape as Culture'', in 1994.<ref name="info">{{cite web |title=Info |url=http://www.loisconner.net/info |website=Lois Conner |access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref> Among her other exhibitions were solo shows ''Asie-la ligne du paysage'' (1997) in Lausanne, Switzerland, ''The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith'' (2005) and ''Twirling the Lotus: Photographs of China and Tibet'' (2007) in London, ''Beijing: Unfurling the Landscape'' (2014) at Australian National University, and ''A Long View'' at the Shanghai Center of Photography (2018).<ref name="info" /><ref name="shine" /> Recent work has included a series of portraits of pregnant women.<ref name="yale" />

==Publications== ===Books of work by Conner=== *''China, The Photographs of Lois Conner.'' Callaway Arts & Entertainment, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0935112573}}.<ref name="pubs">{{cite web |title=Publications |url=http://www.loisconner.net/publications |website=Lois Conner |access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> *''Lois Conner Photographs.'' 2003.<ref name="pubs"/> *''Twirling the Lotus.'' 2007.<ref name="pubs"/> *''Life In A Box.'' 2011.<ref name="pubs"/> *''Beijing Building.'' London. Rossi & Rossi, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1906576219}}.<ref name="pubs"/> *''Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial.'' Princeton Architectural Press, 2014. {{ISBN|978-1616892487}}.<ref name="pubs"/> *''LOST, Beijing.'' Kris Graves Projects, 2018.<ref name="pubs"/> *''Lotus Leaves.'' New Zealand. Wairarpa Academy Occasional Publication No. 1, 2018. {{ISBN|9780935112573}}.<ref name="pubs"/>

Upcoming publications include: ''American Trees'' (Yale University Art Gallery) and ''Beijing Spectacle-Ruination and Reinvention''.<ref name="wide">{{cite book |last1=Hunter |first1=Fredericka |last2=Glennie |first2=Ian |title=The Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie |date=January 2008 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-1871-0 |page=197 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8-h7ZWwDFu4C&q=%22Beijing+Spectacle-Ruination+and+Reinvention%22&pg=PA197 |access-date=27 March 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

==Collections== Conner's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian American Art Museum,<ref name="smithsonian" /> the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the British Library.<ref name="wide" />

==Awards== Conner was awarded John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grants in 1984 and 1985, which enabled her to photograph in China.<ref name="smithsonian"/><ref name="guggenheim">{{cite web |title=Lois Conner |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/lois-conner/ |website=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation |access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref><ref name="lens">{{cite news |last1=Silverman |first1=Rena |title=A Life Collecting Chinese Landscapes |url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/a-life-collecting-chinese-landscapes/ |access-date=27 March 2021 |work=Lens Blog |publisher=New York Times |date=21 May 2014}}</ref> She was also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship<ref name="yale">{{cite web |title=Poynter Fellowship: Lois Conner |url=https://communications.yale.edu/poynter/lois-conner |website=Yale Office of Public Affairs & Communications |access-date=27 March 2021 |language=en |date=3 December 2018}}</ref> and the Anonymous Was a Woman fellowship.<ref name="yale" />

==Bibliography== * ''Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial'' (2014), Princeton Architectural Press, {{ISBN|978-1-616-89248-7}}

==References== {{reflist}} * Davis, Keith F. 'Wanderlust: Work by Eight Contemporary Photographers from the Hallmark Photographic Collection' (Kansas City: Hallmark, 1987), 81. * Feinberg, Jean E. 'Wave Hill Pictured: Celebration of a Garden' (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), 17-21. * [http://www.princeton.edu/~visarts/Faculty/LoisConner/LoisConner.html Princeton University; The Program in Visual Arts; Faculty, s.v. "Lois Conner"]. Accessed 23 November 2007. * [http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=%13%11conner&role=&nation=&prev_page=1&subjectid=500037134 Union List of Artist Names, s.v. "Conner, Lois"]. Accessed 10 September 2006.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conner, Lois}} Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:China Academy of Art Category:Yale School of Art alumni Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:Photographers from New York City Category:Sarah Lawrence College faculty Category:American women photographers Category:National Endowment for the Arts Fellows Category:American women academics Category:21st-century American women