Arno Rafael Minkkinen (born 4 June 1945) is a Finnish-American

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

who works in the United States. Published and exhibited worldwide, Minkkinen's work can be found in the collections of the

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 works ...

and the

Finnish Museum of Photography Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic bra ...

. Seven solo monographs on his work have been published: ''Frostbite'' (1978), ''Waterline'' (1994, winner of the 25th Rencontres d'Arles Book Prize), ''Body Land'' (1999), ''SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 35 Years of Photographs'' (2005), ''Homework: The Finnish Photographs'' (2008), ''Swimming in the Air'' (2009), and ''Balanced Equation'' (2010). The retrospective survey SAGA premiered at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA, in 2005. The 120-print retrospective toured to Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Italy, China, and Canada. Minkkinen was made a Knight of the

Order of the Lion of Finland The Order of the Lion of Finland ( fi, Suomen Leijonan ritarikunta; sv, Finlands Lejons orden) is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty and the Order of the White Rose of Finland. The President o ...

of the first class by the Finnish government in 1992, and awarded the Finnish State Art Prize in Photography in 2006.

Early life and education

Minkkinen was born in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in 1945 and emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1951. He graduated from

Wagner College Wagner College is a private liberal arts college in Staten Island, New York City. Founded in 1883 and with an enrollment of approximately 2,200 students, Wagner is known for its academic program, The Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts. It ...

with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in English Literature, and began taking self-portraits in 1971, while working as an advertising copywriter on Madison Avenue in New York. He later studied with Harry Callahan and

Aaron Siskind Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...

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 the ...

and earned his

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 admini ...

degree in photography in 1974.

Career

Over the past four decades, Minkkinen has been engaged as a teacher, curator, and writer while continuing to devote his photographic research and energies to the self-portrait.

Teaching activities

Minkkinen is a professor of art at the

University of Massachusetts Lowell The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is the northernmost member of the University of Massachusetts public u ...

, and also serves as lecturer at

Aalto University Aalto University ( fi, Aalto-yliopisto; sv, Aalto-universitetet) is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the He ...

of Art & Design Helsinki. Earlier in his teaching career he served as assistant professor at

M.I.T. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, Visiting Artist at Philadelphia College of Art (now

University of the Arts (Philadelphia) The University of the Arts (UArts) is a private art university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia. Dating back to the 1870s, it is one of the oldest schools of art o ...

), the École d'Arts Appliqués in Vevey, Switzerland, and as graduate faculty at Maine Media College in Rockport, Maine. Since joining UMass Lowell in 1987, Minkkinen has taken students to Finland and Russia (1988), and Czechoslovakia (1989). In 1996, in a collaborative UMass Lowell/

Lahti Institute of Design LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts () is a faculty of LAB University of Applied Sciences in Finland, which is a large, multidisciplinary institution of higher education. The LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts is one of the largest Finnish sch ...

(Lahti, Finland) exchange program called Spirit Level, thirty Finnish, American, and Swiss students toured through Finland, Russia, and Eastern Europe for three weeks with Minkkinen and photo department head at Lahti, Timo Laaksonen. Among the students at the time was

Mark Eshbaugh Mark Eshbaugh (born 1974) is an American artist, author, educator, and musician. He has specialized in alternative photography processes and is considered a master in platinum/palladium and chrysotype printing, and excels in gum bichromate, cyan ...

who later became an adjunct professor at UMass Lowell. Seven years after the first Spirit Level, together with Timo Laaksonen and Mark Eshbaugh a professor at Umass Lowell at that time, Tuscany in Italy (2003) and Oaxaca, Mexico (2007) were added to the program. Later Minkinnen organized collaborations with

in Helsinki, Finland and the Foundation Studio Marangoni in Florence, Italy (2010) as well as the Bilder Nordic School of Photography in Oslo and the École Supérieure d'Arts & Medias de Caen/Cherbourg in France (2012) for an American Road Trip to the studio farmlands of American photographer

Sally Mann Sally Mann HonFRPS (born Sally Turner Munger; May 1, 1951) is an American photographer who has made large format black and white photographs—at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death. Early life and e ...

. The first three workshops resulted in the publication of a book commemorating those first three experiences. Minkkinen has taught workshops worldwide, particularly at the Maine Photographic Workshops (now

Maine Media Workshops The Maine Media Workshops (formerly the Maine Photographic Workshops) in Rockport, Maine is an international non-profit educational organization offering year-round workshops for photographers, filmmakers, and media artists. Students from acros ...

), Maine Media College (as part of the graduate faculty), the

Art Institute of Boston Lesley University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. As of 2018-19 Lesley University enrolled 6,593 students (2,707 undergraduate and 3,886 graduate). History ...

Lesley University Lesley University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. As of 2018-19 Lesley University enrolled 6,593 students (2,707 undergraduate and 3,886 graduate). History ...

, Anderson Ranch in Colorado, Santa Fe Workshops in New Mexico, the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California, and in Europe at the

Rencontres d'Arles The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historia ...

in Arles, France, the Toscana Photographic Workshops in Tuscany, Italy, as well as workshop programs in Finland, Norway, Luxembourg, and China. Minkkinen served a second four-year term as national board member of the Society of Photographic Education (2008 to 2016).

Recent work

Since 2009, Minkkinen has developed a growing interest in feature filmmaking and screenwriting. In 2010, he received a first round of support from the

Finnish Film Foundation The Finnish Film Foundation ( fi, Suomen elokuvasäätiö, sv, Finlands filmstiftelse) is an independent foundation with the task of supporting and developing Finnish film production, distribution and exhibition. It is supervised by the Departmen ...

for a screenplay he had written and will be directing. Filming was planned in Finnish Karelia and Finntown, Brooklyn. The demo preview of The Rain House was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in connection with the Dance Films Association's 41st Dance on Camera Festival (2013). As of 2021 the film was in the making.

Publications

Monographs and curated anthologies

*''Frostbite''. Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York. . *''New American Nudes: Recent Trends & Attitudes''. Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, NY. MIT Creative Photography Gallery. *''Elegant Intimacy''. Retretti Art Center, Punkaharju, Finland. With J. H. Lartigue and Sally Mann. Also Harry Callahan, Emmet Gowin, Claude Batho, Yves Tremorin, Roman Vishniac, and Alfred Stieglitz. *''Waterline''. Marval, Paris; Otava, Helsinki; Aperture, New York, 1993. . Grand Prix du Livre, 25th Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival. *''The Waterline Portfolio''. Aperture Foundation. *''Ten Minutes Past Midnight''. Musta Taide, Helsinki, Finland. *''Body Land''. (Motta, Milan, 1997; Nathan, Paris, 1988), Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1999. . *''SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Thirty Years of Photographs''. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2005. . Essay by A. D. Coleman. *''Swimming in the Air''. Cavallo Point at Golden Gate National Park, San Francisco. *''SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen''. SEE+ Art Space Gallery, Beijing. *''Homework / Suomen Kuvat, The Finnish Photographs of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 1973 to 2008''. Like Publishing, Helsinki, 2008. . *''Arno Rafael Minkkinen''. See+ Art Space Gallery. Beijing, China. 30 postcards in book form. *''Balanced Equation''. Lodima Press Portfolio Series.

Publications with contributions by Minkkinen

*Timo Laaksonen and Arno Rafael Minkkinen. ''In Spirit of the Masters.'' Keravan Taidomuseo 2000. . He is co-editor and has images included.

Critical writings, essays and fiction

* Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, Frostbite, Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York. 1981. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, New American Nudes: Recent Trends & Attitudes, Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York. 1981. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "From the Prow." Finnice, Camera International. 1991. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "The Lens of Love," Elegant Intimacy, Retretti Art Center, Punkaharju, Finland. 1993. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, Waterline Marval (Paris), Aperture (New York), Otava (Helsinki), 1994. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Baudelaire's Brow, Reflections on the photographs of Karin Rosenthal. Karin Rosenthal, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Massachusetts. 2000. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Take Out My Eyes," In the Spirit of the Masters, Kerava Art Museum, Kerava, Finland, 2000. pp. 66–79. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Treasures of the Moment: Thirty years of Polaroid Photography in Boston, Photography in Boston 1955–1985, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000. Chapter text pp. 135–153. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "First Frames First." exposure,

Society for Photographic Education The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) is a nonprofit membership organization that provides a forum for the discussion of photography and related media as a means of creative expression and cultural insight. Through its interdisciplinary pr ...

. Vol. 35. Fall 2001. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. Balanced Equation. Lodima Press, Revere, Pennsylvania, 2010. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "Faith in Happenstance." American Faith. Photographs by Christopher Churchill.

Nazraeli Press Nazraeli Press is a publisher of books of photography. It was founded in 1989, in Munich, Germany, by Chris Pichler and has been based in the USA since 1996. Nazraeli publishes roughly 30 new titles each year and has published over 400 with work ...

, Portland, 2011. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "The Morning of Childhood." Faces. Photographs by William Ropp.

Maison européenne de la photographie The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP; European house of photography), located in the historic heart of Paris, is a center for contemporary photographic art opened in February 1996. Location and activities The Hotel Henault de Cantobre, ...

, 2011. * Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "The Horsepower of Desire." Surrounded by No One. Photographs by Margaret M. de Lange.

Trolley Books Trolley Books is an independent UK publisher, specialising in art and photography books. Areas covered by Trolley include social reportage, photojournalism/ current affairs and contemporary art and architecture. Founded in September 2001 by Gig ...

, London, 2011.

Film and television

* Still Not There. Finnish Public Television, 1996: 52-minute documentary on the life and works of Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Directed by Kimmo Koskela. Finnish Emmy Award entry, 1996. * Art Close Up: Boston Photography: 1955–1985. WGBH-TV Channel 2 Boston: 7-minute segment on A.R. Minkkinen as part of DeCordova Museum exhibition, Boston Photographers: 1955–1985. Produced, directed by Marty Ostrow. 1999. * EGG: The Art Show. PBS/ Channel 13, New York. 30-minute segment with Cindy Sherman, Bruce Gilden, Ernest Withers, and Arno Rafael Minkkinen: "Who Am I?" 2000. * Art Close Up: Photography & Reality. WGBH-TV Channel 2, Boston. Produced by Ben Mayer. 2004. * Arno Rafael Minkkinen: 40 Years of Self-Portraits. DVD with Still Not There, 2010 interview, and 172- image slideshow produced and directed by Kimmo Koskela.

Awards

* 1991 National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship * 1992 Order of the Lion First Class, conferred by the Finnish government * 1994 Grand Prix du Livre, 25th Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival * 1996 Scritture d'Acqua Prize (given in Literature, Art, & Science), Italy * 1996 Still Not There. Finland's Emmy Award entry * 1997 Still Not There. Prize of Honor. Art Film Triennial, Kalmar, Sweden * 1998 Still Not There. Silver Key, 6th International Art Film Festival. Geraldine Chaplin, juror. Bratislava, Slovak Republic * 2006 Finnish Photographic Arts Council Book Grant * 2006 Lianzhou International Photo Festival Special Jury Prize for SAGA, Lianzhou, China * 2006 Finnish State Art Prize in Photography * 2008 Finnish Film Foundation grant for re-edit of Still Not There * 2010 Finnish Film Foundation Grant for The Rain House Screenplay * 2011 Nancy Donahue Professor of Art Award

Solo exhibitions

Collections

Minkkinen's work is held in the following permanent collections: *

, Massachusetts

References

External links

Arno Rafael Minkkinen
at Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
Video interview with Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minkkinen, Arno Rafael 1945 births Living people Finnish photographers Nude photography Artists from Helsinki Recipients of the Order of the Lion of Finland Finnish emigrants to the United States University of Massachusetts Lowell faculty