Susan Meiselas facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Susan Meiselas
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Meiselas in 2023
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| Born | June 21, 1948 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
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| Alma mater | Sarah Lawrence College Harvard University |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Known for | photos of Sandinista National Liberation Front insurgents in the Nicaragua Revolution in the 1970s |
Susan Meiselas (born June 21, 1948) is an American photographer who takes pictures of real-life events. She has been part of Magnum Photos, a famous group of photographers, since 1976. She is well-known for her photos from Nicaragua in the 1970s, a country that was going through a war. She also took pictures of people working at American carnivals.
Susan Meiselas has created several photography books and has also helped with other books. Her photos have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, like The New York Times and Time. She has won many important awards for her work, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1979 and the MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. In 2006, she received a special medal from The Royal Photographic Society.
She was married to filmmaker Richard P. Rogers.
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Early Life and Education
Susan Meiselas was born on June 21, 1948, in Baltimore, Maryland. She went to junior high school in Woodmere, New York. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and earned her first degree in 1970. Later, she got a master's degree in visual education from Harvard University. She also received special honorary degrees from the Parsons School and The Art Institute of Boston.
Photography Career
After finishing her studies at Harvard University, Susan Meiselas worked as an assistant film editor for a documentary. From 1972 to 1974, she worked with New York City public schools. She led workshops for teachers and children in the Bronx and helped create photography lessons for students in grades 4-6.
In the mid-1970s, Meiselas started a photo project called Prince Street Girls. This project showed young girls growing up in Little Italy, a neighborhood in New York City. She also helped set up photography programs in schools in South Carolina and Mississippi.
Carnival Project
One of her first big photography projects was documenting people who worked at fairs and carnivals in New England. She worked on this project during the summers while she was teaching. Her work from this project was shown in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum.
Documenting Nicaragua
In the late 1970s, Meiselas traveled to Nicaragua. She took pictures of the country during a time of great change and conflict. She also documented human rights issues in Latin America. One of her most famous photos from this time is called Molotov Man. This picture shows a man holding an object that became a powerful symbol of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. This photo was used widely and even appeared in textbooks in Nicaragua.
In 1991, she made a documentary film called Pictures from a Revolution. In this film, she went back to the places she photographed and talked to the people she had taken pictures of. They shared their thoughts about the images ten years after the war. In 2004, Meiselas returned to Nicaragua again. She put up large versions of her photos in the exact spots where she had taken them. This project was called "Reframing History."
Other Projects
In 1981, she visited a village in El Salvador that had been destroyed. She took pictures of the difficult events there, working with journalists Raymond Bonner and Alma Guillermoprieto.
Starting in 1992, Susan Meiselas used money from the MacArthur Foundation to create a photo history of Kurdistan. This project resulted in a book called Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History and a website.
In 2015 and 2016, Meiselas worked on a project about women living in shelters in England. This project was done with a local arts group, and a book of the work was published in 2017.
Films
Susan Meiselas has also been involved in making films:
- Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family (1986) – she helped direct this film.
- Pictures from a Revolution (1991) – she co-directed this film.
- Roses in December (1982) – this film features her photos of a gravesite.
Awards and Recognition
Susan Meiselas has received many important awards for her photography:
- 1978: Robert Capa Gold Medal for her brave reporting in Nicaragua.
- 1982: Photojournalist of the Year from the American Society of Media Photographers.
- 1992: MacArthur Fellowship, a special award for talented individuals.
- 1994: Maria Moors Cabot Prize for her work covering Latin America.
- 1994: Hasselblad Award, a major photography prize.
- 2006: Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship.
- 2011: Harvard Arts Medal from Harvard University.
- 2015: Guggenheim Fellowship.
- 2019: Winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for her exhibition called Mediations.
- 2025: Outstanding Contribution to Photography from the Sony World Photography Awards.
Collections
Susan Meiselas's photographs are kept in many famous museums and collections around the world, including:
- Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
- Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Massachusetts
- George Eastman House, New York
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
Exhibitions
Her work has been shown in many exhibitions:
- Susan Meiselas. Mediations, at Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in 2017, and Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, in 2018. This was a look back at her entire career.
- Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum. From September 29, 2022, to January 9, 2023, at the International Center of Photography, New York.
See also
In Spanish: Susan Meiselas para niños
