Debra Bloomfield (born 1952) is an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

. She has photographed extensively in Mexico, the American Southwest, Alaska, and California, and has taught photography in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

for over 30 years.

Life and work

Bloomfield was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. She received a B.A. and M.A. from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

in 1976 and 1981, respectively. She lives in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

and teaches photography at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

. She has photographed the American landscape for over thirty years. Primarily in color and often in large scale, her photographs are born from an emotional response to location and memory. Her images draw on the visual language of metaphor and explore the relationship between interiority and the external world. Her photographic works include ''Swimming Pools'', ''Hothouse'', ''Frida/Trotsky'', ''Four Corners'', ''Memory'', ''Oceanscapes'', and ''Wilderness / Up North''. Her work is included in the collections of the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

, the

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

and

Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

, and

The Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London, England, among others. She has received the 1991/92 San Francisco Foundation's James D. Phelan Art Award in Photography for her "Trotsky Series", and the 2005 Western Heritage Literary Award in Photography for her monograph "Four Corners".

Publications

*"Wilderness," 2014 University of New Mexico Press. Essays by Lauren E. Oakes, Rebecca A. Senf, and

Terry Tempest Williams Terry Tempest Williams (born September 8, 1955) is an American writer, educator, conservationist, and activist. Williams' writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of Utah. Her work foc ...

. *"Still: Oceanscapes by Debra Bloomfield," 2008 Chronicle Books. Foreword by

, interview with Corey Keller. *"Four Corners," 2004 University of New Mexico Press. Essays by Debra Bloomfield, Linda Connor, and Douglas Nickel.

Exhibitions

*"Points of View: Photography from the Collection," Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 1996 *"California Current--The Photographer's Perspective," Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1997 *"Four Corners Project," Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM, 2001 *Art Chicago, Chicago, IL, Robert Koch Gallery, 2004 *"Monumental Landscapes," Fahey/ Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2004 *"The Landscape of Time and Place," Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2004 *"Oceanscapes," Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM, 2004 *"Oceanscapes," Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2004 *"Nineteen Going on Twenty," The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI, 2007 *"Marvels of Modernism," George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, 2008 *"Oceanscapes," Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2008 *"A Grand View: Arizona Landscape Photography," Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2010 *"The Summer Show," Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2011 *"Altered Reality," Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT, 2011 *"Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California, 1945-1982," Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, 2012 *"See, Hear, Feel: The Photographs of Debra Bloomfield and Christopher Churchill," Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, 2013-2014

Sources

*"Point of View," by Jane Gottlieb. Photo District News, October 200

*"Breath of Light," by Roy Durfee. The New Mexican, Sunday, June 6, 200

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloomfield, Debra 1952 births Living people Artists from Berkeley, California American women photographers San Francisco State University alumni Photographers from Los Angeles 21st-century American women