Susan Meiselas
1948–
While studying at Harvard University in the early 1970s, Susan Meiselas began photographing neighbors in her Cambridge boardinghouse. Ever since, the acclaimed photographer has adopted a direct approach to the documentary tradition, often immersing herself within diverse populations for sustained periods of time. “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation,” she has remarked.
Meiselas’s first major project, Carnival Strippers, was published as a book in 1976. Made at the time of the women’s liberation movement, this feminist work is the result of the photographer’s engagement with women working as strippers in carnivals and fairs between 1972 and 1975, primarily in New England. Using a small Leica camera without zoom lenses or a flash, she could shoot unobtrusively, capturing the full spectrum of carnival-stripper culture with unflinching immediacy. Attuned to the minutiae of human encounters, Meiselas depicts not only the overtly sexual performances but also the managers, bouncers, and “talkers” who lure clients, as well as the spectators, whose expressions vary from fascination to aggressive leering. Often shot from backstage or the edge of the stage, these candid photographs are as intriguing for their human insight as they are unsettling. Extensive transcriptions from tape-recorded interviews accompany these images and provide a more complex representation of the participants. Much like her contemporaries Danny Lyon and Larry Clark, Meiselas brings into full view a layered slice of America from its half-hidden fringes.
Introduction
Susan Meiselas (born June 21, 1948) is an American documentary photographer. She has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1976 and been a full member since 1980. Currently she is the President of the Magnum Foundation. She is best known for her 1970s photographs of war-torn Nicaragua and American carnival strippers.
Meiselas has published several books of her own photographs and has edited and contributed to others. Her works have been published in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Times, Time, GEO, and Paris Match. She received the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1979 and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1992. In 2006, she was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship and in 2019 the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
After a relationship that spanned more than thirty years, she married filmmaker Richard P. Rogers shortly before his death in 2001.
Wikidata identifier
Q274604
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 11, 2025.
Roles
Artist, photographer
ULAN identifier
500059191
Names
Susan Meiselas
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 11, 2025.
