Abelardo Morell (born 1948,

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

in 1962, moving to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Morell earned a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

from

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. It was chartered in 1794. The main Bowdoin campus is located near Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River. In a ...

in 1977, and a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

School of Art in 1981. He received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Bowdoin in 1997. Morell is well known in the photographic community for creating ''

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...

'' images in various places around the world and photographing these. Morell was awarded the

Cintas Foundation Oscar Benjamin Cintas y Rodriguez, (31 Mar 1887 in Sagua la Grande, Cuba – 11 May 1957 in New York City, N.Y.) was a prominent sugar and railroad magnate who served as Cuba's ambassador to the United States from 1932 until 1934. Career He w ...

fellowship in 1992 and the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

Fellowship in 1993. Other awards he has received include the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...

's Infinity Award in 2011. In 1998 Morell was an artist-in-residence at Boston's Gardner Museum, and the following year, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts hosted his retrospective ''Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye''. Morell served as a professor (now

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

) of photography at the

Massachusetts College of Art Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, and the only publicly funded independent art sch ...

. Edwynn Houk Gallery is his exclusive representation, with his first show with the gallery displayed in their

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location in June 2013. A documentary on elements of Morell's life and work, ''Shadow of the House'', was released in 2007.Shadow of the House (2007)
/ref> The first retrospective of Morell's work in fifteen years was held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013, in an exhibition entitled ''Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door''. It was subsequently shown at the

Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, United States, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997, and is well known for its architecture, garde ...

in Los Angeles.

Books by Morell

*''A Camera in a Room''. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. *''Abelardo Morell and the Camera Eye''. Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, Calif. 1999. *''A Book of Books''. Bulfinch, 2002. *''Camera Obscura''. Bulfinch. 2004. *''Abelardo Morell''. Phaidon. 2008. * ''The Universe Next Door'' published by The Art Institute of Chicago. 2013 * ''Tent-Camera'' published by Nazraeli Press. 2018 * ''Flowers for Lisa'' published by Abrams Books. 2018

References

External links

Photographer's websiteAbelardo Morell at Gallery 339Abelardo Morell on Widewalls.ch
1948 births Living people American photographers Bowdoin College alumni Yale University alumni Cuban emigrants to the United States Massachusetts College of Art and Design faculty Cuban photographers {{cuba-artist-stub