Larry Sultan

Updated on Oct 20, 2023

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Cause of death Cancer Spouse(s) Katherine Sultan		Name Larry Sultan

Born July 13, 1946 Brooklyn, New York City Occupation Photographer, professor Died December 13, 2009, Greenbrae, California, United States Education San Francisco Art Institute (1973) Books Pictures from home, Larry Sultan Artwork Practicing Golf Swing Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada

Mike mandel larry sultan and jim goldberg with constance lewallen

Larry Sultan (July 13, 1946 – December 13, 2009) was an American photographer from the San Fernando Valley in California. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco 1989 to 2009. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, his work is exhibited in museums in the United States.

Larry Sultan Larry Sultan Pictures From Home

Larry sultan and mike mandel evidence

Life and work

Larry Sultan Roswell Angier on Larry Sultan 39Pictures from Home39 2006

Sultan was born on July 13, 1946 in New York City. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, California, where his parents moved when he was an infant. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor's degree in political science, and received a master's in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco.

Larry Sultan Larry Sultan39s Visions of Suburbia The Getty Iris

He started his career in the 1970s as a conceptual photographer. In 1977, he published a collection of photographs he found in corporate and government archives called Evidence with fellow photographer Mike Mandel. The New York Times characterized Evidence as "a watershed in the history of art photography." The two men also created billboards aimed at slowing down road traffic. He then published Pictures From Home, a collection of photographs taken of his parents in the San Fernando Valley from 1982 to 1992, whose role was to question societal expectations of gender and aging. His 2004 assignment for Maxim, which consisted of photographs of middle-class residences rented by the porn industry in the San Fernandino Valley, led to another photographic series called The Valley. He photographed Paris Hilton for Interview in his parents' bedroom in his childhood home.

Larry Sultan Larry Sultan Archives AMERICAN SUBURB X

Sultan was an instructor of photography at his alma mater, the San Francisco Art Institute, from 1978 to 1988. He then taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco as Chair of the Photography Department from 1993 to 1999, and as distinguished professor of art from 1989 to 2009.

He served on the Board of Trustees of the Headlands Center for the Arts from 1992 to 1998. At the time of his death he was the artist trustee at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a position he had taken up in the same year.

He was married to Katherine Sultan, also known as Kelly Sultan. He died of cancer on December 13, 2009 at his home in Greenbrae, California.

Publications

How to Read Music in One Evening. Self-published, 1974. Collaboration with Mike Mandel.

Evidence. Self-published, 1977. Collaboration with Mike Mandel.

Evidence. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2003. ISBN 1-891024-62-0. Reprint.

Headlands: The Marin Coast at the Golden Gate. University of New Mexico, 1989. Collaboration with Miles DeCoster, Mark Klett, Mike Mandel and Paul Metcalf. ISBN 978-0826311528.

Pictures From Home. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. ISBN 0-8109-3721-2.

The Valley. Scalo, 2004. ISBN 3-908247-79-9.

Katherine Avenue. Göttingen: Steidl, 2010.

Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König / Distributed Art Publishers, 2012. ISBN 978-1935202820.

Larry Sultan: Here and Home. New York: Prestel USA, 2014.

Awards

1976: Art in Public Places grant, National Endowment for the Arts. With Mike Mandel

1977: Photographer’s Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts. With Mike Mandel

1980: Photographer’s Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

1983: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

1986: Photographer’s Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

1990: Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship

1991: Biennial Award, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

1992: Photographer’s Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

Solo exhibitions

2012–2013: Larry Sultan's Homeland: American Story, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX, October 2012 – January 2013.

2014–2015: Larry Sultan: Here and Home, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA, November 2014 – May 2015; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, October 2015 - January 2016.

2014–2015: Larry Sultan, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium, March-May 2015.