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Deborah Willis (artist)

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Name
  
Deborah Willis

Role
  
Artist


Spouse
  
Hank Thomas

Children
  
Hank Willis Thomas

Deborah Willis (artist) TALD Profile Deborah Willis 1World1Familyme


Movies
  
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People

Education
  
George Mason University (2001), Pratt Institute

Books
  
Posing Beauty: African A, Reflections in Black, Envisioning Emancipation: Black Am, Let Your Motto Be Resistance, Picturing Us

Similar People
  
Hank Willis Thomas, Barbara Krauthamer, Thomas Allen Harris, Emily Bernard, Bayete Ross Smith

Deborah willis artist author curator educator


Deborah Willis (born February 5, 1948) is a contemporary African-American artist, photographer, curator of photography, photographic historian, author, and educator. Among other awards and honors she has received, she was a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts of New York University.

Contents

Deborah Willis (artist) reddoorprojectorgwpcontentuploads201501Will

Lecture by deborah willis critical narratives in visualizing the black body in photography


Biography

Deborah Willis (artist) Deborah Willis Discusses a Life of Creating and

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Willis is the mother of Hank Willis Thomas. Her father was a photographer, and her close familial ties are apparent in certain works that seem related to family members or occasions, such as Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II (1992).

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Her degrees include a B.F.A. in photography from Philadelphia College of Art in 1975; an M.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute in 1979; an M.A. in art history from City College of New York in 1986; and a Ph.D. from the Cultural Studies Program of George Mason University in 2001. She was the curator of photographs and the prints/exhibition coordinator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library between 1980 and 1992, after which she became exhibitions curator at the Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution for eight years. Between 2000 and 2001 she was Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then joined the faculty of New York University. Interested in "historic and cultural documentation and preservation," she has published "some twenty books on African-American photographers and on the representation of blacks in photographic imagery." Among them are Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present (2002) and Black: A Celebration of a Culture (2014). Also known as "Deb Willis," she survived a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2001.

Deborah Willis (artist) Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas Two Generations of

She co-produced the 2014 documentary film Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, which is based on her book, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present.

Awards and honors

Willis has received numerous awards and honors, including:

  • 2005: Guggenheim Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • 2005: Fletcher Fellow, Fletcher Foundation
  • 2003: Honorary doctorate, Maryland Institute College of Art
  • 2000: MacArthur Fellow
  • 1995: Infinity Award for Writing, International Center of Photography.

    • Artistic and photographic works

    As an artist and photographer, Willis is represented by Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami and Charles Guice Contemporary in Berkeley, California. Her exhibitions have included:

  • "Progeny," Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, 2008. The exhibition traveled as "Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas" in 2009 to New York and to Sacramento, California.
  • "Regarding Beauty," University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2003, containing "photographs and autobiographical quilts."
  • "Deborah Willis: Tied to Memory," Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, 2000.
  • "Deborah Willis," Hughley Gallery & Objects, Atlanta, 1992, involving "small narrative quilts built around historical photographs, documents and family snapshots."

    • Willis is also a quilter, also incorporating photographic images into her pieces. Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II from 1992 (27 x 34"), for example, is a fabric collage with added button, tie clips, and pins forming "a supple, irregularly shaped memorial." The work references multiple generations and genders, as it elicits memories of fathers teaching their sons, boys maturing into adult clothes and rituals, and women adjusting their husbands' knots. At the same time, however, the artist's cutting and reconfiguration of the ties raises the possibility that such nostalgic references might be outmoded or rejected. This multivalent collage "also memorializes black soldiers who fought in World War II," since Willis includes photos of soldiers on linen fabric collaged onto the tie fabric. Willis's focus on the African-American experience is evident in Tribute to the Hottentot Venus: Bustle (1995), a fabric and photo linen collage (23 x 28") in a triptych format. Small images of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called "Hottentot Venus," appear in the left and right sections together with pieced fabric silhouettes of her body. The central image in the triptych is of a late 19th-century dress with prominent bustle, its shape emphasizing the buttocks. Willis explains that her use of quilting as a technique "reminds us who we are and who and what our ancestors have been to us in the larger society."

    Her quilts have been included in the following exhibits and catalogs:

  • "Story Quilts: Photography and Beyond", Black Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1999, Curated by photographer and installation artist Pat Ward Williams, the exhibition showcased the works of three African-American artists—Willis, Kyra E. Hicks and Dorothy Taylor.
  • Tribute to the Hottentot Venus quilt, 1992.

    • Curated exhibitions

    Exhibitions that Willis has curated include:

  • "Posing Beauty in African American Culture," showing Fall 2009 at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and touring in the U.S. through December 2012.
  • "Reflections in Black," Arts and Industries Building, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2000, on African-American photography. The exhibition in whole or in part traveled widely in the U.S. between 2000 and 2003.
  • "Constructed Images: New Photography," which traveled between 1989 and 1992.

    • Books

  • Willis, Deborah; Barbara Krauthamer (2012). Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-43990-985-0. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Hank Willis Thomas; Kalia Brooks (2009). Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas. New York: Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. ISBN 978-1-884919-23-7. 
  • Willis, Deborah (2009). Posing Beauty: African American images from the 1890s to the present. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06696-8. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Kevin Merida (2008). Obama: the historic campaign in photographs. New York: Amistad. ISBN 978-0-06-173309-3. 
  • Willis, Deborah (2007). Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American portraits. Washington, DC: National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 978-1-58834-242-3. 
  • Wallis, Brian; Deborah Willis (2005). African American Vernacular Photography: selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection. New York: International Center of Photography. ISBN 3-86521-225-5. 
  • Willis, Deborah (2005). Family History Memory: recording African American life. New York: Hylas. ISBN 1-59258-086-6. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Sean Moore; Karen Prince (2004). Black: a celebration of a culture. Irvington, NY: Hylas. ISBN 1-59258-051-3. 
  • Lewis, David L; Deborah Willis (2003). A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. Du Bois and African-American portraits of progress. New York: Amistad. ISBN 0-06-052342-5. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Carla Williams (2002). The Black Female Body: a photographic history. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-928-9. 
  • Crouch, Stanley; Deborah Willis (2002). One Shot Harris: the photographs of Charles "Teenie" Harris. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3272-5. 
  • Willis, Deborah (2000). Reflections in Black: a history of Black photographers, 1840 to the present. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04880-2. 
  • Cottman, Michael H; Deborah Willis; Linda Tarrant-Reid (1996). The Family of Black America. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88822-X. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Jane Lusaka (1996). Visual Journal: Harlem and D.C. in the thirties and forties. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-691-3. 
  • Cottman, Michael H; Deborah Willis (1995). Million Man March. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88763-0. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Jane Lusaka (1994). Imagining Families: images and voices. Washington, DC: National African American Museum, a Smithsonian Institution Project. ISBN 1-885892-00-4. 
  • Willis, Deborah (1994). Picturing Us: African American identity in photography. New York: New Press. ISBN 1-56584-107-7. 
  • Driskell, David C; David L Lewis; Deborah Willis (1994). Harlem Renaissance: art of Black America. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, Abradale Press. ISBN 0-8109-8128-9. 
  • Willis, Deborah (1993). J.P. Ball, daguerrean and studio photographer. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8153-0716-0. 
  • Willis-Braithwaite, Deborah; Rodger C Birt (1993). VanDerZee, photographer, 1886-1983. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3923-1. 
  • Willis, Deborah (1992). Early Black Photographers, 1840-1940: 23 postcards. New York: New Press. ISBN 1-56584-007-0. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Lorna Simpson (1992). Lorna Simpson. San Francisco: Friends of Photography. ISBN 0-933286-60-0. 
  • Willis, Deborah; Howard Dodson (1989). Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 years of social protest. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum of Art. ISBN 0-913697-09-5. 
  • Willis-Thomas, Deborah (1989). An Illustrated Bio-bibliography of Black Photographers, 1940-1988. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-8389-X. 
  • Driskell, David C; David L Lewis; Deborah Willis Ryan (1987). Harlem Renaissance: art of Black America. New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1099-3. 
  • Willis-Thomas, Deborah (1985). Black Photographers, 1840-1940: an illustrated bio-bibliography. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-9147-7. 

    • References

    Deborah Willis (artist) Wikipedia
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