Lecture and booksigning by photographer Gay Block

In conjunction with her recently released publication About Love, renowned photographer Gay Block will present an overview of her career, talk about how her work as a portrait photographer has given her insight into life and love, and sign copies of her new book.

Block began photographing in 1973 in her native Houston, where she made portraits of people in her upscale Jewish community. In the early 1980s, the artist’s work expanded to include portraits of people at the Jewish Community Center swimming pool, girls at a summer camp in upstate New York, and images of Jewish life in Miami’s South Beach. Among her many projects, Block is particularly known for the critically acclaimed series Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, a book, exhibition, and award-winning video, and Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, a book, film, and exhibition that traveled to more than fifty venues. The artist has continued her series Camp Girls by rephotographing the campers twenty-five years later. Block’s work is in the collections of many institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; and the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe.

Block’s new book, About Love, is published by Radius Books and includes a rich selection of work from throughout her almost forty-year career. The work is illuminated by an extended conversation between the artist and her longtime friend Anne Wilkes Tucker, who has served as Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, since 1976. Five of Block’s films are made accessible for the first time in DVDs included in the book.

Though the artist moved to Santa Fe in 1992, her work has not often been seen locally. This lecture and publication gives visitors a chance to get acquainted with her rich body of work as well as a rare opportunity to hear directly from the artist. Please join us for this special evening of photographs, musings, and memories and the launch of the book About Love.