Geraldine Sharpe (1929–1968), also known as Gerry Sharpe, was an American photographer. She had worked as an assistant to

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...

. Sharpe's two major bodies of work include photographs of landscapes, and of

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

(from 1962).

Biography

Geraldine Sharpe was born in 1929 in Trenton, New Jersey. She attended the California School of Fine Arts (now

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 ...

), where she graduated in 1956. She studied under Pirkle Jones and Bill Quandt. While in school, her film camera was a

Zeiss Ikon Zeiss ( ; ) is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany, in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the foundation for today's mu ...

120. After graduation she worked as a photo assistant for Ansel Adams between 1957 until 1962. Many of her landscape photos were taken at the same locations as Adams, however her work had more dark tonal qualities and appeared "tragic" in subject and composition. In 1962, she was awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

for photography, which was used to work in Ghana. In 1967, she helped co-found the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California. At the time of her death in 1968 she was the director of photography at the Francis du Pont Winterhur Museum (now

Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home of Henry Francis du Pont ...

) in Delaware. She died on December 29, 1968, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, after a short illness at the age of 39. Her work is part of the museum collection at the Monterey Museum of Art.

Biography

References

Further reading