
Lynn Gilbert (born January 7, 1938) is a photographer and author best known for her portraits of illustrious women from the 1920s to the 1980s and her documentation of Turkish homes and interiors.
Life and career
Gilbert grew up in New York and attended
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly i ...
, Bronxville, NY, Bachelor of Arts (Art History) 1959 and the
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...
, New York, NY, Bachelor of Science (Fashion Design) 1962.

Gilbert began her career as a photographer documenting the lives of her children in the 1960s, and used the camera to comment on socio-economic diversity with the photographic portraits of others’ children. Her interest in portraiture developed into a series titled “Illustrious Women” that became the photographic accompaniment of the book of oral biographies, ''Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped Our Times'',
published 1981. The book recounts the rich oral histories of forty-two pioneering women of the twentieth century from the arts and sciences, athletics and law, mathematics and politics, and includes the portraits and oral biographies of such notable women as
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...
,
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Steinem was a ...
,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
,
Julia Child
Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, ...
and
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United State ...
,
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland (September 29, 1903 – August 22, 1989) was a French-American fashion columnist and editor. She worked for the fashion magazine '' Harper's Bazaar'' and as editor-in-chief at '' Vogue'', later becoming a special consultant to the ...
.
Extensive travel to
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
produced a photographic record of the historic home of the area, exhibited widely in Turkey, and recorded in the book, ''The Silk Road: Then and Now (2)'' published 2015.
The book records traditional homes of Turkey located along the ancient Silk Road, homes both humble and affluent, with a mix of furniture, art, linens, household serving items and vibrantly colored, centuries-old handwoven rugs. Her images are governed by design, color, balance and light.
Exhibitions
*Children in Repose is Gilbert's photographic series of children from more than 100 families of varying socio-economic backgrounds in New York City in the mid 1970s.
*Lynn Gilbert's photographs of Turkey have been widely exhibited in Turkey and at the
Godwin-Ternbach Museum
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than ...
in Queens. Her portraits are part of the permanent collection of
The National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC.
*Gilbert is a contributing writer to the Turkish magazine, ''
Cornucopia
In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...
''.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, Lynn
Living people
1938 births
American women writers
20th-century American photographers
Sarah Lawrence College alumni
Fashion Institute of Technology alumni
20th-century American women photographers
21st-century American women