Geraldine Sharpe (1929–1968), also known as Gerry Sharpe, was an American photographer. She had worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams. Sharpe's two major bodies of work include photographs of landscapes, and of

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

(from 1962).

Biography

Geraldine Sharpe was born in 1929 in Trenton, New Jersey. She attended the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute), where she graduated in 1956. She studied under

Pirkle Jones Pirkle Jones (January 2, 1914 – March 15, 2009) was an American documentary photographer and educator. Biography Pirkle Jones was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. His first experience with photography was when he bought a Kodak Brownie at th ...

and Bill Quandt. While in school, her film camera was a

Zeiss Ikon Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the ...

120. After graduation she worked as a photo assistant for Ansel Adams between 1957 until 1962. Many of her landscape photos were taken at the same locations as Adams, however her work had more dark tonal qualities and appeared "tragic" in subject and composition. In 1962, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for photography, which was used to work in Ghana. In 1967, she helped co-found the

Friends of Photography Friends of Photography was a nonprofit organization started by Ansel Adams and others in 1967 to promote photography as a fine art. During its existence the organization held at least 330 photography exhibitions at its galleries in Carmel and San F ...

in Carmel, California. At the time of her death in 1968 she was the director of photography at the Francis du Pont Winterhur Museum (now

Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home o ...

) in Delaware. She died on December 29, 1968, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, after a short illness at the age of 39. Her work is part of the museum collection at the Monterey Museum of Art.

Biography

References

Further reading