Deborah Willis
Deborah Willis (b. 1948) is an artist, author and curator whose pioneering research has focused on cultural histories envisioning the black body, women and gender. She is a celebrated photographer, acclaimed historian of photography, MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow, and University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Willis received the NAACP Image Award in 2014 for her co-authored book Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery (with Barbara Krauthamer) and in 2015 for the documentary Through a Lens Darkly, inspired by her book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Benton Museum of Art (Mansfield, CT); Storrs Avon Collection (New York); University of Alabama (Birmingham, AL); Center for Creative Photography (Tuscon, AZ); Light Works (Syracuse, NY); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Center for Creative Photography (Duke University).