Susan Lipper (born 1953) is an American photographer, based in New York City.
.

Harvey Benge Harvey Benge (27 July 1944 – 7 October 2019) was a New Zealand photographer who lived in Auckland and Paris. He exhibited his work in European galleries. Life and work Benge claimed that his photography was inspired by anything that attracted h ...

, 28 June 2016. Accessed 26 March 2018. Her books include ''Grapevine'' (1994), for which she is best known, ''Trip'' (2000) and ''Domesticated Land'' (2018). Lipper has said that all of her work is "subjective documentary"; the critic

Gerry Badger Gerald David "Gerry" Badger (born 1946) is an English writer and curator of photography, and a photographer. In 2018 he received the J Dudley Johnston Award from the Royal Photographic Society. Life and career Badger was born in 1946 in Northam ...

has said many describe it as "ominous". Lipper had a solo exhibition at

The Photographers' Gallery The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography. It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established in ...

, London in 1994https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Prog_Exhibition_List_1971%20to%202023.pdf and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2015. Her work is held in the collections of 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 ...

and

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

in New York City,Photographers in The New York Public Library's Photography Collection
.

. Accessed 26 March 2018.

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, and the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

and

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London.Susan Lipper (1953-), Photographer
.

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

. Accessed 25 March 2018.

Early life and education

Lipper was born and raised in New York City. She studied English

Romantic poetry Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18t ...

in college with a concentration on

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

. She received an MFA in photography from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1983.

Life and work

Lipper uses a

medium format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the used in 35&nbs ...

camera, a

Hasselblad Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist- ...

, sometimes with attached flash. For about 20 years she has been visiting and photographing a tiny community in Grapevine Hollow in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, eastern United States. The photographs she made there between 1988 and 1994, in collaboration with her subjects the residents, became her first book ''Grapevine''. The critic

has written that "Community, family, and gender relationships seem to be at the core of her investigation." Lipper's collaborative approach distinguishes ''Grapevine'' from

social documentary photography Social documentary photography or concerned photography is the recording of what the world looks like, with a social and/or environmental focus. It is a form of documentary photography, with the aim to draw the public's attention to ongoing social ...

; she describes it as "subjective documentary" and that "we were creating fictional images together . .they knew the narratives I was playing around with as well as I did." Izabela Radwanska Zhang wrote in the ''

British Journal of Photography The ''British Journal of Photography'' (BJP) is a magazine about photography, published by 1854 Media. It includes in-depth articles, profiles of photographers, analyses, and technological reviews. History The magazine was established in Liverpo ...

'' that it "challenges our belief in images labelled 'photojournalism', by interweaving a theatrical element. Lipper asked her models to assume characters that could essentially be them in the images; the result is a slippery, mysterious work." ''Trip,'' made between 1993 and 1999, paired photographs of urban landscapes and interiors with writing by

Frederick Barthelme Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer, well-known as one of the seminal writers of minimalist fiction. Alongside his personal publishing history, his position as Director of The Center For Write ...

. ''Domesticated Land'' was made between 2012 and 2016 in the California desert.

Publications

Books of work by Lipper

*''Innocence & the Birth of Jealousy''. Rushden, UK: Omphalos, 1974. *''Grapevine: Photographs by Susan Lipper''. Manchester, UK:

Cornerhouse Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...

, 1994. . **Limited edition. New York: powerHouse, 1997. . *''Trip''. Photographs by Lipper with accompanying short texts by

. **Stockport, UK:

Dewi Lewis Dewi Lewis (born 10 March 1951) is a Welsh publisher and curator of photography. Career In 1975, Lewis was the founding director of the Bury Metropolitan Arts Association which operates the Met. Lewis also founded and was the first director of ...

, 2000. . **Brooklyn, New York: powerHouse, 2000. . *''Bed and Breakfast''. Country life 4. Maidstone, UK:

Photoworks Photoworks is a UK development agency dedicated to photography, based in Brighton, England and founded in 1995.

, 2000. . Edited by

Val Williams Val Williams is a British curator and author who has become an authority on British photography. She is the Professor of the History and Culture of Photography at the London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London, and ...

. With an essay by David Chandler. Edition of 1000 copies. *''Domesticated Land''. London: Mack, 2018. .

Books with contributions by Lipper

*''How We Are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present''. Edited by

and

Susan Bright Susan Bright is a British writer and curator of photography, specializing in how photography is made, disseminated and interpreted. She has curated exhibitions internationally at institutions including: Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery in L ...

. London:

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, 2007. .

Solo exhibitions

*''Grapevine Hollow'',

, London, 1994

Awards

*2015:

from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

Collections

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

, New York City: 2 prints (as of 11 April 2023) *

, Minneapolis, Minnesota: 1 print (as of 30 August 2021) *

: 5 prints (as of 11 April 2023) *

: 4 prints *

, New York City *

, London: 7 prints (as of 30 August 2021)

References

External links

*
"ICP Lecture Series 2010: Susan Lipper"
(video) – Lipper describes her career {{DEFAULTSORT:Lipper, Susan Photographers from New York City 20th-century American photographers 21st-century American photographers 20th-century American women photographers 21st-century American women photographers Living people 1953 births