Willis, Deborah
(b. Philadelphia, PA, 1948; active New York, NY, 2006)
Photographer, Art Historian.

Bibliography and Exhibitions | | Images

Education: B.F.A., Photography, Philadelphia College of Art, 1975; M.F.A., Photography, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 1979; M.A. Art History, Museum Studies, City University of New York, 1986; Ph.D., George Mason University, Cultural Studies Program, 2001.

Biography: Willis's work as artist, scholar and curator explores the development of the African American self-image. From 1980 to 1992, she served as Exhibition Coordinator and Curator of Photographs and Prints at the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The leading American historian of black photography, Willis's many awards include an NEA Grant (1990), a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2000), Guggenheim Fellowship (2005), the ICP's Infinity Award for Writing in Photography, the Golden Light Photography Book of the Year (1993). Her books include: Black Photographers 1840-1940: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography (1985); Black Photographers 1940-1988: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography (1989); J. P. Ball, Daguerrean and Studio Photographer (1992); Lorna Simpson (1992); VanDerZee: The Portraits of James VanDerZee (1993); The Family of Black America (with Michael Cottman) (1996); A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. DuBois and the Photographs from the Paris Exposition (with David L. Lewis); Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers - 1840 to the Present; and Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography (1994). She has curated numerous groundbreaking exhibitions including: Families: Images and Voices (1994), VanDerZee (1993), Constructed Images: New Photography (1989), and Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest (1989); The Black Female Body A Photographic History (with Carla Williams) (2000). Has taught at Mills College, Columbia College (Chicago), Maryland Institute College of Art, R.I.S.D., University of Colorado, Harvard University, among others. Currently Professor of photography and imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and Collections Coordinator for the National African American Museum Project, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Media: Silver print photographs, photographs on linen; quilted mixed media work.

Imagery: Family, autobiography, black women, children, memory, worship, shacks, beauty shops, body builders, quilts, community, civil rights.

Collections: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon; Sarah Moody Gallery, University of Alabama.