Laura Letinsky facts for kids

Laura L. Letinsky, born in 1962, is a talented artist and a professor at the University of Chicago. She lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Laura Letinsky is known for her amazing photographs. Her art makes people think about what photos really mean. She also explores ideas about home life, different roles people play, and how we use things. In 2019, her work was shown at PHotoEspaña, and she has received a special award called the Guggenheim Fellowship.

Becoming an Artist

Laura Letinsky was born in Winnipeg, Canada. She studied art at the University of Manitoba, finishing in 1986. Later, she earned her master's degree from the Yale School of Art in 1991. She received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000 and another award called the Anonymous Was a Woman fellowship in 2001. Today, she teaches visual arts at the University of Chicago.

Laura Letinsky's Art

Early Photography Work

In the 1990s, Laura Letinsky often photographed couples. You can see this in her photo series called Venus Inferred. This work looked at how old religious pictures changed over time into images about love and romance. She also started thinking about how photographs are made and how people use them. Artists like Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, and Diane Arbus influenced her early work.

Laura Letinsky later started taking pictures of still lifes. These are photos of everyday objects, like food or dishes, arranged in a certain way. She was inspired by old Dutch-Flemish still life paintings. She found that still lifes allowed her to explore ideas about home life and how small, everyday things connect to bigger ideas in society. She wanted to show that what a picture is about isn't always exactly what you see in the picture. Through this, she developed her own special style that many people recognize.

In 2004, a long-term series she had been working on since 1997, called Hardly More Than Ever, was shown at The Renaissance Society. This show helped establish her as an important modern artist.

Art in the 2010s

In 2009, Laura Letinsky took a break from photography for a year. During this time, she worked with ceramics, fabrics, and words. She was thinking about how photographs are both images and physical objects. When she returned to photography in 2010, she started a new still-life series called Ill Form and Void Full. In this work, she explored how one picture can inspire another.

In 2019, Laura Letinsky showed her series To Want For Nothing in Chicago. These pictures were different from her usual domestic table settings. She used cutouts from magazines and advertisements to create new images. These works explored how shapes and forms affect stories, and how much our world is filled with images. A writer named Hugo Fortin said her photographs show her amazing skill in still life photography. He also noted that her work is powerful and thoughtful.

During this time, Laura Letinsky also worked with artist John Paul Morabito on textile projects. One project was Stain Napkins, which were napkins with woven-in stains. Another was the 2017 series Telephone Game. In this series, the artists explored how photography and weaving are connected, using digital tools to bring them together.

Books About Her Work

After her show at the Renaissance Society, Laura Letinsky released a book about her Hardly More Than Ever series (1997-2004). In 2006, she released another book called Now Again. This book featured Hardly More Than Ever and her newer work, Somewhere, Somewhere (2003-present).

In the 2010 photography book After All, Letinsky showed her latest work, including the series The Dog And The Wolf, To Say It Isn’t So, and Fall. In After All, she explores how photography can make ordinary things look beautiful and strong. A poet named Mark Strand wrote an essay for this book.

Laura Letinsky also released two more books with Radius Books: Ill Form And Void and Time’s Assignation. For Time’s Assignation, curator Nathalie Herschdofer wrote about how old Polaroid photos connect with Laura Letinsky's still life subjects. The book Ill Form And Void includes all the works from that series. It shows how ideas about private life are built on what came before. A reviewer from Lenscratch said the book changes how we think about classic still life art.

Art in the 2020s

In 2022, Laura Letinsky continued her work with ceramics. She showed a new series of porcelain sculptures called Preparing for Flowers. She made these porcelain pieces because she wanted to create something physical and take a break from the digital world. She was inspired by kintsugi, a Japanese art form where broken pottery is repaired beautifully.

Who Loves the Sun

Laura Letinsky's newest photography series is called Who Loves the Sun. Most of these photos were taken in 2023 when she was living in the South of France at La Maison Dora Maar. This series is a return to traditional still life photography, but with a modern twist. An exhibition of this work, called For, And Because Of…, opened at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City in 2024. In this series, Laura Letinsky used both natural and artificial light to make her images glow. She photographed objects from La Maison, like a ceramic vase and glassware, which might have belonged to the artist Dora Maar. She also included things left behind by other artists and flowers growing nearby.

Laura Letinsky explains that she photographs ordinary things in a way that makes you question what the camera shows. She also wants the pictures to be visually pleasing and connect to other senses. She has also made special tintype photos from iPhone images. These works connect to the past (like Cubism and old photography methods) and show how time and perspective can change. This work will be shown at Document Space in Lisbon in the autumn of 2024.

Art critic Vince Aletti reviewed the exhibition For, And Because Of… He wrote that Laura Letinsky lets the light in Provence, France, make her prints almost abstract. He described her photos as "after-dinner jumbles of dirty plates, crumpled napkins, and wilted flowers." He noted that even though the party is over, Letinsky sees hope and new beginnings in these scenes.

Molosco Dinnerware

In 2024, Laura Letinsky launched Molosco, a collection of porcelain dinnerware. She started working on this project with Big House Studio in 2010. The Molosco collection is inspired by mollusks, which are creatures that carry their homes (shells) with them. This idea is seen in the dinnerware, which is practical but also has Laura Letinsky's unique artistic style. It challenges the idea of perfect dishes and celebrates the unique marks made by the artist's hand. Molosco officially launched in March 2024 at a pop-up shop in the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago.

Laura Letinsky and Molosco have also worked with a cooking studio called Txa Txa Club. For their special dinner series, the different food courses were inspired by the Molosco story or the dishes themselves.

Art Shows

Laura Letinsky's work has been shown in many art exhibitions around the world. Here are some of her solo shows:

• "For, and Because Of...", Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC, 2024
• "About Things", Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago, IL, 2024
• "The Indignation of Counting Spiders", Document Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2022
• "Preparing for Flowers" (ceramics), Tracey Morgan Gallery, Ashville, NC, 2022
• "Guild Hall, revisited", Document Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2020
• "To Want For Nothing" exhibition at Yancey Richardson in New York, 2019
• "Time’s Assignation", Musee des Beaux Arts, LeLocle, Switzerland, 2019
• Laura Letinsky and Sharon Core, Photo Espanà, Madrid, 2019
• Laura Letinsky, American Center, University of Shanghai Science & Technology, Shanghai, 2018
• Laura Letinsky, Singapore International Photography Festival, Singapore, 2018
• "Infinite Gamers", Open House Contemporary, Chicago, IL, 2017
• "Time’s Assignation", Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC; Document, Chicago, IL, 2017
• "Telephone Game", Document Projects, Chicago, IL, 2017
• "Telephone Game", Material Exchange Fair, Mexico City; Basel, Basel Design Fair; and Art Expo Chicago, 2017
• "57 Breaths", Skyline Design, NeoCon Fair, Chicago, IL, 2017
• "Betwixt and between", Tracey Morgan Gallery, Asheville, NC, 2017
• Still Life Photographs 1997–2012, School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, 2016
• "A Still Dialogue", Tanya Marcuse & Laura Letinsky, S. New Hampshire University, NH, 2016
• "Repository: Porcelain Urns", Castani Gallery, Art Expo, Chicago, IL, 2015
• Focus, Mumbai Photography Festival, Mumbai, India & A Moment on the Lips: Illinois State Museum Gallery, Normal, IL, 2015
• "STAIN": Collaboration with John Paul Morabito, Artware Editions, NYC, 2015
• "STAIN": Collaboration with John Paul Morabito, Kavi Gupta Editions & The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL, 2015
• "Neither Necessary nor Natural", Focus, Mumbai Photography Festival, Mumbai, India, 2015
• "Yours, more pretty", Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC, 2014
• "Creases Turn Sour", Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston, 2014
• "Ill Form and Void Full", The Photographers Gallery, London, UK, 2013
• "Ill Form and Void Full", Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2012
• "Hot and Cold All Over", Joseph Carroll and Sons, Boston, 2012
• "Ill Form and Void Full", Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY; Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, Museum of Hagen, Germany, 2012
• Laura Letinsky: Still Life, Denver Museum of Art, CO, 2012
• "That What Matters", Museum of North Dakota, 2011
• "After All", Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, 2011
• "Fall, Brancolini Grimaldi, Florence, Italy, 2011
• "The Dog and The Wolf", Monique Meloche Gallery, 2010
• "After All", Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, 2010
• "Still", Galerie m Bochum, Germany, 2010
• "To Peach", Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2010
• "To Want for Nothing", Brancolini Grimaldi Galerie, Rome, Italy, 2009
• "Likeness", James Hyman Gallery, London, England, 2009
• "Before the colors deepened and grew small", galerie mBochum, Bochum, Germany, 2008
• "Dirty Pretty Things", Brancolini Grimaldi Galerie, Rome, Italy, 2007
• "To Say It Isn’t So", Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY, 2007
• "To Say It Isn’t So", Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, 2007
• "Somewhere, Somewhere", Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, 2007
• "Hardly More Than Ever", M. Sturm Gallery, Stuttgart, 2006
• "Hardly More Than Ever", Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, CA, 2006
• "Somewhere, Somewhere", J. Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA, 2006
• "Somewhere, Somewhere", Oakville Galleries, Toronto, Ontario; Bright Design Showroom, Chicago, IL, 2006
• "Hardly More Than Ever", Galerie Kusseneers, Antwerp, Belgium, 2005
• "Somewhere, Somewhere", Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2005
• "Hardly More Than Ever" at the Renaissance Society, 2004
• Aftermath: Still-life photographs by Laura Letinsky, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2004
• I did not remember I had forgotten, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY; Shine Gallery, London, England; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2003
• Morning, and Melancholia, Iowa University Gallery, Iowa, 2003
• Morning, and Melancholia, Edwynn Houk Gallery, NY; Jane Jackson, Atlanta; Copia: American Academy of Food and Wine, Napa Valley, 2002
• Venus Inferred-Self Portraits, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, 2002
• Some Things I Know, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, IL, 2002
• Laura Letinsky, Vox Gallery, Montreal, QUE, 2001
• Morning, and Melancholia, Carol Ehlers Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2000
• Venus Inferred, Bishop's University, Quebec, 1999
• Venus Inferred, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (touring), Ottawa, ONT; Guy McIntyre Gallery, New York, NY, 1998
• Coupling, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, 1997

Where Her Art Is Kept

Laura Letinsky's artwork is part of the collections at several important museums. These include the Getty Museum, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Art Institute of Chicago.