Laura McPhee (born 1958) 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 ...

known for making detailed large-format photographs of the cultural landscape. Her images raise questions about human effects on the environment and the nature of humankind's complex and contested relationship to the earth.

Early life and education

Laura McPhee grew up in central

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, the oldest daughter of

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning author

John McPhee John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American author. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourt ...

and photographer Pryde Brown. She had three younger sisters, novelists

Jenny McPhee Jenny McPhee (born c. 1962) is an American novelist and translator. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, she has worked as a translator of Italian literature to English and wrote the novels '' The Center of Things'' (2001), '' No Ordinary Matter'' (2004), ...

and

Martha McPhee Martha McPhee (born 1965) is an American novelist whose work focuses on social and financial mobility in the United States. Her second novel, '' Gorgeous Lies'', was a 2002 National Book Award finalist. She has received a National Endowment for ...

; and architectural historian, Sarah McPhee. After her parents divorced, her mother married Dan Sullivan, a therapist. They had a daughter Joan together. She is CEO of the Partnership for LA Schools. The new blended family included five step-siblings from her stepfather's first marriage. Together they lived on a 50-acre farm in New Jersey. McPhee 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 ...

Art History Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1980, 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 ...

in Photography from the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

in 1986.

Career

She is a professor at the

Massachusetts College of Art and Design 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 ...

. Some of her achievements include a

Fulbright Scholars The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

Fellowship to work in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, a residency in the

Sawtooth Valley The Sawtooth Valley is a valley in the Western United States, in Blaine and Custer counties in central Idaho, United States. Description About long, the valley is in Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) in the Sawtooth National Forest. ...

of central

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

from the Alturas Foundation, a

New England Foundation for the Arts The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six Non-profit organization, not-for-profit Regional arts council (RAO), regional arts organizations funded by the National E ...

Fellowship, and a

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. Her work is in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

and 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 ...

, the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, 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 ...

, and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, among many others.

Work

McPhee is noted for her large-scale photographs of

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s and

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s of people who live and work in them. McPhee's work is concerned with place and the ways we define and manage our relationship to the land. McPhee's work has been exhibited both in the United States and abroad. Her body of work ''River of No Return'' was exhibited at the

in 2006 and at Kansas City's

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a $5 million annual budget and approximately 75,000 visitors each year, it is Missouri's first and largest contemporary museum. Founders The core of the museum's per ...

in 2013. A monograph of the same title was published by Yale University Press in 2008. Her first monograph, ''No Ordinary Land'' (in collaboration with Virginia Beahan) was published by

Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

in 1998. McPhee's most recent book, ''The Home and the World: A View of

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

'' (2014), explores the weight of colonialism through images of the architecture of that city and portraits of passersby. It was published by Yale University Press. Alan Thomas wrote about this work in ''Places Journal''.

Exhibitions

*1994 –

Photographer's Gallery The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography. It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established ...

, London, England *1995 – pARTs Gallery, Minneapolis, MN *1995 –

Rose Art Museum The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from its permanent co ...

, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA *1998 – Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, NY *1999 – ''No Ordinary Land'', Burden Gallery, Aperture, New York, NY *1999 – ''No Ordinary Land'',

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 ...

, Boston, MA *1999 – ''No Ordinary Land'',

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art is an art museum in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The museum was originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was formerly located ...

, Pittsburgh, PA *2001 – ''No Ordinary Land'', Columbus Art Museum, Columbus, OH *2001 – ''No Ordinary Land'', Teton Regional,

Jackson, Wyoming Jackson is a resort town in Teton County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 10,760 at the 2020 census, up from 9,577 in 2010. It is Teton County's only incorporated municipality and county seat, and it is the largest incorporated town ...

*2001 – ''No Ordinary Land'',

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

Art Museum,

Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...

*2002 – ''No Ordinary Land'', Vision Gallery,

Jerusalem, Israel Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

*2002 – ''Interior Calcutta,'' II Gabbiano Gallery,

Rome, Italy Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

*2004 – ''The Home and the World,'' Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA *2005 – ''No Ordinary Land'', Sam Noble Museum,

Norman, OK Norman () is the 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,026 as of the 2020 census. It is the most populous city and the county seat of Cleveland County and the second-most populous city in the Oklahoma ...

*2005 – ''Kolkata'', Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY *2006 – ''Silent Steps'', Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA *2006 – ''River of No Return'' -

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 work ...

* 2007 – ''River of No Return'',

Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, mod ...

, Boise, ID, 2007 (solo) Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, Idaho * 2008 – ''Two Canyons, Two Years Later'', Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA * 2008 – ''River of No Return'', Gail Gibson Gallery, Seattle WA * 2009 – ''Guardians of Solitude'', Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY * 2009 – ''Guardians of Solitude'', Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID * 2011 – ''River of No Return'', Navarro Gallery, Southwest School of Art, San Antonio TX 2011 White Clouds, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID * 2011 – ''When We Talk About Love'', Carroll & Sons,

Boston, MA Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

* 2012 – ''Push'' - G. Gibson Gallery,

Seattle, WA Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

* 2012 – ''Looking Back at Earth: Contemporary Environmental Photography from the Hood Museum of Art's Collection'',

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

Hanover, NH Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of E ...

* 2012 – ''A Generous Medium: Photography at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

'', 1972-2012, Davis Museum, Wellesley, MA, 2012 * 2012 – ''America In View: Photography from 1865 to Now'',

Rhode Island School of Design Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art m ...

Providence, RI Providence () is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, it is one of the oldest cities in New England, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and ...

* 2013 – ''River of No Return'' -

Kansas City, MO Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

* 2015 – ''The Home and the World: a View of Calcutta'', Gail Severn Gallery,

Ketchum, ID Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, United States. Located in the central part of the state, the population was 3,555 at the 2020 census, up from 2,689 in 2010. Located in the Wood River Valley, Ketchum is adjacent to Sun Valley and ...

* 2015 – ''The Home and the World: a View of Calcutta'', Carroll and Sons Gallery,

* 2015 – ''The Home and the World: a View of Calcutta'', Benrubi Gallery,

New York, NY New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

* 2016 – ''Selections'', Bakalar & Paine Galleries,

, Boston, MA * 2016 – ''Big: Photographs from the Collection'',

The Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art and ho ...

Cleveland, OH Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania stat ...

* 2016 – ''Changing Frontiers'', The Chrysler Museum of Art,

Norfolk, VA Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most populous city ...

* 2017 – '' Samuel F.B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention'', The

Peabody Essex Museum The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, US, is a successor to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem (which acquired the Society's collection) and th ...

Salem, MA Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one of the most significant seap ...

* 2018 – ''

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 ...

in Our Time,'' The

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, MA * 2019 – ''Women Take the Floor,'' The

, MA * 2020 – ''Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin,''

Boise, ID Boise ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north ...

* 2020 – ''Loosely Stated'', ROSEGALLERY,

Santa Monica, CA Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

* 2021 – ''What We Do in The Shadows,''

deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the southern shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950, and is the largest park of its k ...

'','' Lincoln, MA * 2021 – ''

in Our Time,''

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2), with more than 112,000 square feet (10,400 m2) of gallery space. The museum’s permanent c ...

Portland, OR Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

* 2021 – ''The Expanded Landscape,''

The Getty The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest a ...

Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city ...

Publications

Publications authored by Laura McPhee

* 1998 - ''No Ordinary Land,'' Laura McPhee and

Virginia Beahan Virginia Beahan (born 1946) is an American photographer. Beahan is known for her large format photography and her work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Harvard ...

* 2000 - ''Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits,'' Laura McPhee,

and

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

* 2008 - ''River of No Return,'' Laura McPhee,

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

* 2009 - ''Guardians of Solitude,'' Laura McPhee, * 2011 - ''Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park'', * 2014 - ''The Home and the World: A View of Calcutta'', Laura McPhee,

*2018 - ''Lost,'' Laura McPhee
Kris Graves Projects

Publications including photographs by Laura McPhee

* 1996 - ''Flesh and Blood: Photographers’ Images'' * 2018 - ''Eye on the West: Photography and the Contemporary West,'' George Miles,

, ISBN 9780300232851 * 2018 - ''The Photographer in the Garden,'' Sarah Anne McNear, Jamie M. Allen,

, ISBN 9781597113731

Grants and awards

* 1980 – Page Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Visual Arts,

* 1984 – New Jersey Council for the Arts Grant * 1991, 1990, 1988 – Polaroid Artists Support Grant,

Polaroid Corporation Polaroid Corporation was an American company that made instant film and cameras, which survives as a brand for consumer electronics. The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit his Polaroid (polarizer), Polaroid polarizing polyme ...

* 1993 –

Fellowship * 1995 –

Fellowship * 1998 – Fulbright Scholars' Fellowship to India and Sri Lanka * 2003–2004 – Alturas Foundation (Commission) * 2006 – Peter Reed Foundation Grant * 2007 – Camargo Foundation (Residency), Cassis, France * 2008–2009 —

Van Alen Institute Van Alen Institute is a Brooklyn-based independent nonprofit architectural organization that works to create equitable cities through inclusive design. It is located at 303 Bond St in Gowanus, Brooklyn. History Van Alen Institute was founded in ...

(Commission), New York * 2004, 2009 – Massachusetts College of Art and Design Faculty Fellowship

References

External links

* * Laura McPhee Photographs of the American West. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:McPhee, Laura American photographers 1958 births Living people Princeton University alumni Rhode Island School of Design alumni Massachusetts College of Art and Design faculty American women photographers American women academics 21st-century American women