Nicholas Nixon (born October 27, 1947) is an American photographer, known for his work in portraiture and documentary photography, and for using the 8×10 inch view camera.

Biography

Nixon was born in 1947 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. Influenced by the photographs of

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...

and

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans' work from ...

, he began working with large-format cameras. Whereas most professional photographers had abandoned these cameras in favor of shooting on 35 mm film with more portable cameras, Nixon preferred the format because it allowed

prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserved ...

to be made directly from the large format negatives, retaining the clarity and integrity of the image. Nixon has said "When photography went to the small camera and quick takes, it showed thinner and thinner slices of time, nlikeearly photography where time seemed non-changing. I like greater chunks, myself. Between 30 seconds and a thousand of a second the difference is very large." His first solo exhibition was at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

curated by John Szarkowski in 1976. Nixon’s early city views taken of Boston and New York in the mid-seventies were exhibited at one of the most influential exhibitions of the decade, '' New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape'' at the

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

in 1975. In the late nineties, Nixon returned to this subject matter to document Boston’s changing urban landscape during the Big Dig highway development project. In 1976, 1980, and 1987, Nixon was awarded

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Photography Fellowships. In 1977 and 1986, he was awarded

Guggenheim Fellowships Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), 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 abi ...

. Nixon's subjects include schoolchildren and schools in and around Boston, people living along the Charles River near Boston and Cambridge as well as cities in the South, his family and himself, people in

nursing home A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of elderly or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as skilled nursing facility (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to i ...

s, the blind, sick and dying people, and the intimacy of couples. Nixon is also well known for his work ''People With AIDS'', begun in 1987. Nixon recorded his subjects with meticulous detail in order to facilitate a connection between the viewer and the subject. In 1975, Nixon began his project, ''The Brown Sisters'' consisting of a single portrait of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters each year, consistently posed in the same left to right order. As of 2021, there are forty-seven portraits altogether. The series has been shown at the St. Louis Art Museum,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

's Fogg Art Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, KBr Photography Center, Fundación MAPFRE in Barcelona, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2010, 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 ...

organized the exhibition "Nicholas Nixon: Family Album" which included "The Brown Sisters" series among other portraits of his wife Bebe, himself and his children Sam and Clementine. In 2021, The Galerie le Château d’Eau presented the first major exhibition of Nixon’s work in France, an ambitious survey accompanied by an expanded catalog. Nixon gained a B.A. from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1969 and an M.F.A from the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

in 1975. He worked as a part-time professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design from 1975 until March 2018.

Allegations of inappropriate behavior

On March 22, 2018, Nixon retired from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in mid-semester just after an investigation into alleged inappropriate behavior was announced. The investigation focuses on whether his conduct violated

Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...

rules. The

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Gl ...

has also been investigating the professor since the beginning of 2018 for claims of

sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fr ...

. The paper interviewed more than a dozen former students who claimed the photographer asked undergraduate students to pose nude for him and made vulgar remarks in a classroom setting. On April 12, 2018, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston decided to close an exhibition of Nixon's photographs ten days early after the museum earlier said they would keep the exhibition on view following the report by the Boston Globe. Nixon asked the museum to cancel the exhibit immediately. In 2021, the suit was settled, resolving the formal complaints against Nixon.

Books

* ''Photographs From One Year'' (1983) * ''Pictures of People'' (1988) * ''People With AIDS'' (with Bebe Nixon) (1991) * ''School'' (1998) * ''The Brown Sisters'' (2002) * ''Nicholas Nixon Photographs'' (2003) * ''Home'' (2005) * The Brown Sisters, Thirty-three Years (2007) * ''Live Love Look Last'' (2009) * ''Close Far'' (2013) * ''Forty Portraits in Forty Years'' (2014) * ''About Forty Years'' (2015) *
Closing the Distance
' (2021)

Exhibitions

* Nicholas Nixon: Pictures of People, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, 1989 * Human Experience: Photographs by Nicholas Nixon, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, 2001 * Nicholas Nixon: The Brown Sisters 1975-2008, The Alhambra, Granada, Spain, 2009 * Nicholas Nixon: Family Album, Museum of Fine Art Boston, July 28, 2010 – May 1, 2011 * Nicholas Nixon: Forty Years of The Brown Sisters, Museum of Modern Art, Nov 22, 2014 – Jan 4, 2015 * ''Nicholas Nixon.'' Fundacion Mapfre, Madrid, September 14, 2017 – January 7, 2018, traveling to

C/O Berlin C/O Berlin is a private exhibition space for photography and visual media in Berlin. It is located in Amerika Haus Berlin by Zoologischer Garten station, Charlottenburg, where it has more than 2,500 square metres of space. C/O Berlin presents wor ...

, Berlin, Germany and Fondation A Stichting, Brussels, Belgium *''Nicholas Nixon: Persistence of Vision,'' Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2018 *Nicholas Nixon: Un Infime Distance, Galerie Le Chateau D’eau, Toulouse, France, November 3, 2021– January 16, 2022

Awards

* 1976, 1980, 1987: National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship * 1977, 1986: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship * 1982: ‘New Works’ Grant, Massachusetts Council of the Arts * 1988: Friends of Photography Peer Award * 2000: George Gund Foundation Fellowship

Collections

, New York City *

Amon Carter Museum Amon may refer to: Mythology * Amun, an Ancient Egyptian deity, also known as Amon and Amon-Ra * Aamon, a Goetic demon People Momonym * Amon of Judah ( 664– 640 BC), king of Judah Given name * Amon G. Carter (1879–1955), American pub ...

, Fort Worth, TX *

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 ...

, Chicago, IL * Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD *

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

, Paris, France *

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, Cleveland, OH * Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX *Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO *Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI *Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA * High Art Museum, Atlanta, GA *Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston, MA *George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY *

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

, Los Angeles, CA * Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA *

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 ...

, New York, NY * Musee d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France *

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Project ...

, Chicago, IL * Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA * Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX *

, New York, NY *Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA *

, Washington, DC * National Gallery of Australia, Parkes, Australia *National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada * New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, Philadelphia, PA *

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 ...

, San Francisco, Ca *Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA * Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Washington, DC *Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany *Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Tokyo, Japan *

Victoria & 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 ...

, London, England

References

External links

Interview with Nixon from 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nixon, Nicholas 1947 births Living people University of Michigan alumni University of New Mexico alumni American photographers Artists from Detroit Massachusetts College of Art and Design faculty New Topographics photographers