Nina Raginsky , (born April 14, 1941) is a Canadian
photographer who received the honour of the
Order of Canada in 1984.
Life and work
Born in
Montreal,
Quebec, she received a
Bachelor of Arts degree from
Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1962. While at Rutgers she studied painting with
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...
, sculpture with
George Segal
George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...
and Art History with
Allan Kaprow.
[Nina Raginsky Photographs: August 25-September 30, 1979 (1979). Art Gallery of Ontario (pamphlet).]
Raginsky turned to photography seriously in 1963, doing freelance work for the National Film Board. She worked first in black and white but later began to sepia tone and hand-colour her prints. She has also created oil paintings based on photographs. After spending a year in Mexico, she returned to Canada in 1968 and began a project recording remote life in the
Yukon and First Nations communities in
British Columbia. The following year, she became an assistance curator of education at the
Vancouver Art Gallery until 1972. She then began a series of photos documenting the city and people of Vancouver, Victoria, and British Columbia. Between 1972 and 1981, Raginsky was an instructor at the
Emily Carr College of Art, formerly the Vancouver School of Art.
Her work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the US and in various magazines and books, including those of the National Film Board's "Image" series, Canada: A Year of the Land" and "Between Friends". Magazines in which her work appeared include
Queen (magazine)
''Queen'' (originally ''The Queen'') magazine was a British society publication briefly established by Samuel Beeton in 1861. It became '' The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle'' before returning to ''The Queen''. In 1958, the maga ...
, the
Daily London Telegraph Magazine, and
L'Express
''L'Express'' () is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''Réussir''.
History ...
Paris.
From 1962, her photographs have been in numerous exhibits at the
George Eastman Museum Rochester, New York, the
San Francisco Museum, the
Burton Gallery in Toronto, the
National Gallery of Canada, and the
Photo Gallery in Ottawa, among others.
She is best known for her frontal, full-figure portraits, particularly of eccentric or whimsical personalities. One such example is the 1974 work, ''The Kirkpatrick Sisters in front of the Empress Hotel, Victoria, British Columbia''. Raginsky left the photographic medium during the 1980s and turned almost exclusively to painting. In 1985 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
She is a member of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
In 2015, her photo ''Shoeshine Stand'' appeared on
Canada Post postage stamps.
Artistic inspiration
Nina Raginsky has cited German photographer,
August Sander
August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sander has been described as "the most important Ger ...
as inspiration for her portraits in particular his work, ''Men Without Masks''.
[''Men without masks: Faces of Germany, 1910-1938''. (1973). Sander, August.]
Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raginsky, Nina
1941 births
Living people
Canadian women artists
Canadian women photographers
Officers of the Order of Canada
Artists from Montreal
Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts