Sandra S. "Sandy" Phillips (born 1945) is an American writer, and curator working in the field of photography. She is the Curator Emeritus of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She joined the museum as curator of photography in 1987 and was promoted to senior curator of photography in 1999 in acknowledgement of her considerable contributions to SFMOMA. A photographic historian and former curator at the Vassar College Art Gallery in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Phillips succeeded Van Deren Coke as head of one of the country’s most active departments of photography. Phillips stepped down from her full time position in 2016. Peter Galassi, chief curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, said "I think she is one of the best photography curators that anybody has ever known."

Life and work

Phillips' father was Joseph Sammataro, "an immigrant from Sicily who became a New York architect" and her mother was Nelva Weber, "a farmer's daughter from Illinois who became a well-known landscape architect and author." She grew up in New York's

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

. She received a B.A. in art and art history from Bard College in

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

in 1967, an M.A. from

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

in Pennsylvania in 1969, and a Ph.D. in

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

in 1985 from

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

, where she specialised in the history of photography and American and European art from 1849 to 1940. Her Ph.D dissertation was on André Kertész. She briefly taught history of photography at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

, CA, and was a curator at the Vassar Art Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY. Phillips' earliest major project was the 1985 exhibition ''André Kertész: Of Paris and New York,'' organised by the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

and shown at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York City, in collaboration with the curators of those museums. She is interested in

vernacular photography The term vernacular photography is used in several related senses. Each is in one way or another meant to contrast with received notions of fine-art photography. Vernacular photography is also distinct from both found photography and amateur phot ...

. Her SFMOMA exhibition ''Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence,'' "examined mug shots and crime scenes and was the first museum show of its kind." ''Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870,'' co-curated with Simon Baker at

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

, examined the voyeuristic aspect of photography; it premiered at

in London and toured to SFMOMA and to the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

in Minneapolis. Phillips' first husband was Matt Phillips and her second is Stephen Vincent. She has a son, Joshua E.S. Phillips.

Exhibitions curated by Phillips

*1985: ''André Kertész: Of Paris and New York,'' The

, and The

hown in NY 1986 Co-organized with David Travis and Weston J. Naef. *1989: ''A History of Photography from California Collections'',

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, CA. *1989: ''John Gutmann'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Retrospective exhibition. *1991: ''Helen Levitt'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1992: ''Wright Morris: Origin of a Species'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1994: ''Dorothea Lange: American Photographs'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1995: ''William Klein New York 1954-1955'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1995: ''Commonplace Mysteries: Photographs by Peter Hujar, Andrea Modica and Bill Owens''. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1995: ''Public Information: Desire, Disaster, Document'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Collaborative effort with SFMOMA’s curators of media arts and painting and sculpture. *1995: ''Ansel Adams at 100'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Curated with John Szarkowski *1996: ''Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West, 1849 to the Present'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1997: ''Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *1997: ''

Jim Goldberg Jim Goldberg (born 1953) is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations. Among the many awards Goldberg has received are thr ...

: Raised by Wolves'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2003: ''Diane Arbus Revelations'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2004: ''Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2004: ''Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of a Nation'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Curated with Leo Rubenfien. *2004: ''Larry Sultan: The Valley'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2005: ''Taking Place: Photographs from the Prentice and Paul Sack Collection'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2005: ''Robert Adams: Turning Back'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2005: ''John Szarkowski, Photographs'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2006: ''Mexico as Muse: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2006: ''Beyond Real: Surrealist Photography and Sculpture from Bay Area Collections'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2007: ''Henry Wessel'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2009: ''Face of our Time'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Which included Yto Barrada, Guy Tillim, Judith Joy Ross and Leo Rubenfien, *2010: ''Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera since 1870''. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Curated with Simon Baker. *2011: ''Face of our Time'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Which included Jim Goldberg, Daniel Schwartz, Richard Misrach, Zanele Muholi and Jacob Aue Sobel *2012: ''Rineke Dijkstra: Retrospective'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. *2012: ''South Africa in Apartheid and After: David Goldblatt, Ernest Cole, Billy Monk''. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Retrospective exhibition.

Publications

In conjunction with exhibitions curated by Phillips

*''André Kertész: Of Paris and New York'', London: Thames and Hudson, 1985. Co-authored with David Travis and Weston J. Naef. *''John Gutmann: Beyond the Document'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1989. ASIN B00LSCF3O2 *''Helen Levitt'', San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1991. *''Wright Morris: Origin of a Species'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1992. *''Dorothea Lange: American Photographs'', San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994. *''Public Information: Desire, Disaster, Document'', an Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1995. *''Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West, 1849 to the Present'', San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996. *''Police Pictures'', San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997. *''Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog'', San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1999. *''Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation'', New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2004. *''Diane Arbus Revelations'', Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2003. *''Ansel Adams at 100'', 2001. *''Robert Adams: Turning Back'', San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery; New York: Mathew Marks Gallery, 2005. *''Taking Place: Photographs from the Prentice and Paul Sack Collection'', San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2005. *''John Szarkowski: Photographs.'' New York: Bulfinch, 2005. . *''Henry Wessel.'' Göttingen: Steidl,

, and Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, 2007. *''Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. *''Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective'', New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2012. *''American Geography: Photographs of Land Use from 1840 to the Present'', Radius Books/SFMOMA, May 18, 2021.

Writing contributions by Phillips

*''Charmed Places: Hudson River Artists and their Houses, Studios and Vistas'', New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988. *''Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray'', New York: Abbeville Press, 1988. *''Eyes of Time: Photojournalism in America'', New York: New York Graphic Society, 1988. *''About Face.'' San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2014. . Exhibition catalog. Edition of 1000 copies. With forewords by Christopher McCall, and Richard Avedon (from ''In The American West''), an introduction by

Philip Gefter Philip Gefter is an American author and photography historian. His books include ''What Becomes A Legend Most,'' the biography of Richard Avedon; and ''Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe'', the biography of Sam Wagstaff, for which he received ...

, and texts by Sandra S. Phillips, and Ulrike Schneider.

Awards

*2000: Resident at the American Academy in Rome *2000: Japan Foundation grant to study Japanese photography in Japan. *2013: Vision Award from the

Center for Photography at Woodstock The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is a not-for-profit artist-centered organization to develop and promote contemporary photography, located in Woodstock, New York. It began operations in 1977 under the name ''Catskill Center for Photogr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Sandra S. American curators 1945 births Living people Photography curators Historians of photography American women curators