Joanne Leonard

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Joanne Leonard
Born1940
Los Angeles, CA - U.S.A.
Known forphotographs, photo collages
Notable workRomanticism is Ultimately Fatal, Father and Daughter, West Oakland, CA, Not Losing Her Memory, Newspaper Diary: Trompe l'Oeil Photographs

Joanne Leonard is an American photographer, photo collage artist, and feminist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work has been included in major art history textbooks and has been shown internationally in galleries and museums.[1][2]

Early life[edit]

Joanne Leonard was born in Los Angeles in 1940 to P. Alfred Leonard, originally of Mannheim, Germany, and Marjorie Rosenfeld Leonard. She has a twin sister, Eleanor (Rubin), who is also an artist, and a younger sister, Barbara (Handelman). She received a B.A. in Social Science from the University of California in 1962.[3][1] As infants, she and her twin sister were cast as a baby in the film The Lady Is Willing starring Marlene Dietrich.[4]

Career[edit]

Leonard is known for her photographs and photo collages depicting private moments and personal struggles from women's lives once considered either taboo or unimportant.[1] Her work struck a chord with the art world in the later part of the 20th century, and she was one of the few female artists to be featured in the 3rd edition of H.W. Janson’s History of Art.[5] Her photograph, Julia and the Window of Vulnerability was chosen to illustrate the opening of the chapter, "The Modern World" in the 1991 edition of Gardner's Art Through the Ages.[6]

She was an official photographer for the 1972 Winter Olympics.[7]

She taught art and interdisciplinary courses at the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design and now holds the title of Diane M. Kirkpatrick and Griselda Pollock Distinguished University Professor Emerita.[1] She has one daughter, Julia.[8]

Leonard's influence on the field of photography has been for making images of things, places, and people from women’s realms and private spaces—from a woman’s own perspective. A large body of her work is in photo collage,[9] made with the goal of juxtaposing the intimate with social questions or political issues that are circulating today in the world. She is happily known for distinguished photo collage[10] work as well.

Collections[edit]

Leonard's work is held by major collections, including:

Quotations[edit]

  • I built a darkroom when I could have fixed up a kitchen.[19]
  • My camera has always sought the beauty and light in a moment.[20]
  • Feminism is a tool for looking at what's missing.[21]
  • The making of the work, as miserable as I was (and it was a miserable time for me), was also a time of great excitement because I was doing something I had actually never seen before. I was finding ways to represent something I had no idea how to do.[22]
  • Anne Frank's Diary, for all the horror it conveyed, also said that a young girl's thoughts, and life, and everyday events could be important.[23]

Videos[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Photographic Memoirs[edit]

  • Being in pictures: an intimate photo memoir. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-47211-402-3.
  • Newspaper Diary: Trompe l’Oeil Photographs, with essays by Amanda Krugliak and Wendy Kozol, University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, 10 color plates, 5 incidental figures, with essays, 2 details in endpapers, 20 pages. 2012.

Manuscript[edit]

  • Woman by Three. Menlo Park. Pacific Coast Publishers. 1969. First Edition. Illustrated by monochrome photographs.

Short List of Works from 1960s-Present[edit]

  • Family and Friends – 1962 – to the present – Often exhibited and in many collections, including SFMOMA.
  • Julia (daughter) with concentration - 1975 – 95, and most extensively reproduced in Leonard’s book, Being In Pictures. Exhibits and collections include SFMOMA
  • Interiors 1977 – early 1980s– home interiors photographed in conjunction with “HAT” - Human Arts and Technology – a project funded by NEA Photo Surveys grant – ultimately, the series incorporated images made earlier (in the 1960s in West Oakland) and has been exhibited at MoMA (2022-3) in NYC, will be shown in 2024 in Minneapolis Institute of Art in upcoming Counter/Culture and at Luhring Augustine Tribeca gallery in New York City
  • Not Losing Her Memory - photographs and collages focusing on women in Leonard's family and her mother’s memory loss – 1980s and 90s. Exhibited in the 1990s at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, and at Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA among other venues

Exhibitions[edit]

Further reading[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Joanne Leonard". Brooklyn Museum Feminist Art Base. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  2. ^ "Joanne Leonard". Stamps School of Art & Design. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  3. ^ Leonard, Joanne (2008). Being in Pictures. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780472114023.
  4. ^ Leonard, Joanne (2008). Being in Pictures. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780472114023.
  5. ^ Janson, Horst Woldemar (1986). History of Art (3rd ed.). New York: H.N. Abrams. pp. 781–782. ISBN 013389388X.
  6. ^ Gardner, Helen (1991). Gardner's Art through the Ages (9th ed.). San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 858. ISBN 0155037692.
  7. ^ O'Neill, Claire (17 May 2009). "Joanne Leonard's 'Being in Pictures'". The Picture Show: Photo Stories from NPR. NPR. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  8. ^ "Being in Pictures An Intimate Photo Memoir". Michigan Publishing : University of Michigan Press. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  9. ^ https://www.mocp.org/?s=Joanne+leonard&search_area=website
  10. ^ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/782061
  11. ^ "Being in Pictures". International Center of Photography. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  12. ^ "Another Morning". Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  13. ^ "Joanne Leonard". LACMA. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  14. ^ "Joanne Leonard : Romanticism Is Ultimately Fatal". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
  15. ^ "Joanne Leonard". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  16. ^ "Joanne Leonard". SFMOMA. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  17. ^ "Joanne Leonard". UMMA. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  18. ^ "Joanne Leonard". Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved 1 May 2024.
  19. ^ https://www.moma.org/artists/131253
  20. ^ https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2009/05/joanne_leonard.html/
  21. ^ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989575.2014.921761
  22. ^ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989575.2014.921761
  23. ^ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989575.2014.921761
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