Simon Barnett – CNN Photos
Kath Blanco – Collector + FotoFest Board Member
Jane Brown – ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
Darren Ching – Klompching Gallery / PDN
Joshua Chuang – Yale University Art Gallery
Daniel Cooney – Daniel Cooney Fine Art
Jennifer DeCarlo – JDC Fine Art
Roy Flukinger – Harry Ransom Center
Reuel Golden – TASCHEN
Julie Grahame – aCurator
Rebekah Jacob – Rebekah Jacob Gallery
Rose Wind Jerome – The Center for Photography at Woodstock
Christina Leber – DZ BANK Art Collection
Russell Lord – New Orleans Museum of Art
Richard McCabe – Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Carol McCusker – Harn Museum of Art
Paul Moakley – TIME/Lightbox
Robert Morton – Robert Morton Books
Kurt Mutchler – National Geographic
Rebecca Senf – Center for Creative Photography / Phoenix Art Museum
Rob Shaeffer – Princeton Architectural Press
Sarah Stolfa – Philadelphia Photo Arts Center
Lisa Sutcliffe – Milwaukee Art Museum
Mary Virginia Swanson – Mary Virginia Swanson & Assoc.
Takeshi Arthur Thornton – Tokyo Photo
April Watson – The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Jessie Wender – The New Yorker
Clint Willour – Galveston Arts Center
Stephen Wirtz – Stephen Wirtz Gallery
Tim Wride – Norton Museum of Art
Reviewers Bios
Simon Barnett
Director of Photography
CNN Photos
cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com
Simon Barnett serves as the director of photography for CNN Digital. In this role, Barnett’s responsibilities include overseeing worldwide staff editors, developing long-term photographic and design strategy for all digital platforms. Based in New York, Barnett reports to Meredith Artley, vice president and managing editor of CNN Digital.
Barnett joined CNN in December 2011 and is a photography veteran. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience in digital photography working with leading publications throughout the industry. In addition to his role overseeing staff editors and design strategies, Barnett oversees the day to day operations as the supervising editor of the CNN Photos Blog.
Prior to joining CNN in 2011, Barnett served as the director of photography for Newsweek, Esquire, Life.com, and Discover. His work has been recognized by World Press Photo, SPD, ASME, Oversea, Press Club and NPPA, among others.
Kath Blanco
Private Collector + FotoFest Board Member
Houston, TX
Kath Blanco and her husband, Jorge, have collected photography and artwork for over 20 years. They seek emerging artists through dealers and through personal contact. Their photography collection includes Ferit Kuyas, Laurie Lambrecht, Kurt Tong, Luis Gonzalez-Palma, Mario Cravo Neto, Lalla Essaydi, Pablo Soria, and Imogen Cunningham. Kath is a Board Member of FotoFest (4 years) and is Chair of First Look, a select group of collectors who enjoy sneak peeks of Openings and other collectors’ homes. First Look also attends such events as AIPAD, Paris Photo, Houston Contemporary Fair, Houston Art Fair, and now, PhotoNOLA.
Jane Brown
VP / National Accounts Director
ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
Los Angeles, CA
www.artbook.com
Jane Brown has worked in the book industry for 28 years. Since 2002 she’s been D.A.P.’s National Accounts Director and Director of ARTBOOK West.
ARTBOOK | D.A.P. is the premiere distributor for books on contemporary art, photography, design and aesthetic culture. Over the past two decades ARTBOOK has grown into a major international distributor of books, special editions and rare publication from an array of the world most respected publishers, museums and cultural institutions.
Prior to D.A.P., Jane worked as National Accounts Director at Harry N. Abrams, and as a field rep for the University Press consortium Harvard, Yale and MIT.
Darren Ching
Owner
Klompching Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
klompching.com
Darren Ching is the owner of the Klompching Gallery in New York, specializing in the sale and exhibition of contemporary fine art photography, by emerging and mid-career artists. Founded in 2007 with Debra Klomp Ching, their exhibits have received critical reviews from publications such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Modern Painters, HotShoe and Art Review. For more than a decade, his involvement in the photography industry includes participation in notable photography review festivals, panel presentations, juroring of photography awards, and has contributed to both online and print publications on the subject of photography. In 2010, Mr. Ching was on the photography judging panel for the Society of Publication Designers annual competition. He is also the Creative Director of Photo District News, responsible for the visual design identity of the magazine since 1999. Mr. Ching curated the “Photography Now 2008” show at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and was the featured U.S. curator (alongside Debra Klomp Ching) with the exhibit, “The Architecture of Space,” for the inaugural Flash Forward Festival (Toronto, 2010). Klompching Gallery is a member of The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) and exhibited at their 2013 fair.
Additionally, Mr. Ching is the Creative Director for Photo District News (PDN).
Joshua Chuang
Richard Benson Associate Curator of Photography and Digital Media
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, CT
artgallery.yale.edu
Joshua Chuang is the Richard Benson Associate Curator of Photography and Digital Media at the Yale University Art Gallery. He recently organized the critically acclaimed touring retrospective Robert Adams: The Place We Live, along with a related series of publications. He also spearheaded Yale’s acquisition of Lee Friedlander’s archive and master sets of photographs made since 1990. In addition to his work with Adams and Friedlander, he also helped to edit monographs on the work of Judith Joy Ross (Portraits of the Hazleton Public Schools, 2006) and Mark Ruwedel (Westward the Course of Empire, 2008 and 1212 Palms, 2010). He has written widely on postwar American and contemporary photography, and in 2009 his book First Doubt: Optical Confusion in Modern Photography won an Independent Publisher Book Award in the category of photography.
Daniel Cooney
Director
Daniel Cooney Fine Art
New York, NY
www.danielcooneyfineart.com
Daniel Cooney is the owner and director of Daniel Cooney Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. We specialize in exhibiting the best emerging artists and under recognized work of more established artists. Daniel holds a BFA from SUNY New Paltz and a MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has taught at the University of Illinois, The Fashion Institute of Technology and currently at The School of Visual Arts. He began his gallery career at the James Danziger Gallery and continued as the Associate Director of the Julie Saul Gallery. He was also the Director of Online Photographs at Sotheby’s.com.
Some of the artist’s represented by the gallery include Dan Estabrook, Joseph Maida and Tim Roda. Daniel is most interested in completed and cohesive bodies of work ready for exhibition. He is not interested in commercial or fashion work. To research the gallery please visit www.danielcooneyfineart.com. Previous portfolio reviews include Center for Photography at Woodstock, International Center for Photography, Parsons School for Design and Review Santa Fe.
Jennifer DeCarlo
Owner
JDC Fine Art
San Diego, CA
www.jdcfineart.com
Jennifer DeCarlo has a strong connection to the photographic field through her work in commercial galleries and as a writer. Ms. DeCarlo established jdc Fine Art in 2011, a gallery dedicated to contemporary photography. Prior to opening the gallery she worked as the Assistant Director at the Schneider Gallery in Chicago. Ms. DeCarlo is active academically and professionally. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and writes for the international photography association AIPAD.
A seasoned reviewer, Ms. DeCarlo is critical but fair. Depending on where the work is in process, she is able to help the artist evaluate and reflect on completed work or pause to sharpen the point of work in progress. She is most interested in reviewing narrative, figurative work, but welcomes seeing other work that explores the creative potential of photography.
Roy L. Flukinger
Senior Research Curator
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX
www.hrc.utexas.edu
ROY FLUKINGER is the Senior Research Curator of Photography at the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. He publishes, lectures, produces exhibitions, and serves as a chief resource individual for the Photography Department, which holds some five million images including the famous Gernsheim Collection. He also teaches, serves on numerous boards, and serves as a juror, consultant and reviewer for many art and photography organizations and institutions.
He holds degrees from Tulane University, where he was recently named a Distinguished Alumni, and The University of Texas, Austin. He has taught as an Adjunct Lecturer/Assistant Professor at UT and other institutions. He has published and lectured extensively in the fields of contemporary photography and the history of art and photography. To date he has produced or participated in over eighty exhibitions, including A Lewis Carroll Centenary and Visiones de Tejanos/Visions of Texans, as well as such traveling shows as Eve Arnold: In Retrospect and The Formative Decades: Photography in Great Britain, 1839-1920. Among his more recent publications are: The Gernsheim Collection, Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty, Windows of Light, and Photography: The First 150 Years.
He is interested in all forms of contemporary photography from black and white to color and digital, with an additional interest in modern work employing historical, alternative processes. He is most interested in seeing artistic and photojournalistic bodies of work, and less interested in purely commercial work, though he still remains pretty dang enthusiastic about all disciplines of photography.
Reuel Golden
Editor
TASCHEN
New York, NY
www.taschen.com
Reuel Golden is the photography editor at TASCHEN books. Titles he’s worked on include amongst others: New York.Portrait of a City, Her Majesty and The Beatles with Harry Benson. He is currently working on a photographic history of The Rolling Stones and finishing off a major project with the National Geographic. Prior to joining TASCHEN, he was executive editor at Photo District News.
Mr. Golden is open to reviewing everything apart from reportage/photojournalism, since it’s not something they greatly publish. Documentary is okay – i.e. something more feature-based, rather than hard news.
Julie Grahame
Editor and Publisher
aCurator
Brooklyn, NY
acurator.com
Julie Grahame is the publisher of aCurator, a full-screen photography website, and the aCurator blog, named one of the top 20 photography blogs by Life.com. Julie represents the Estate of Yousuf Karsh for licensing, judges competitions, writes, and gives portfolio reviews. In a previous life, she ran the Retna photo agency.
In addition, Julie was recently the Associate Director of ClampArt Gallery in New York City. She can advise photographers seeking gallery representation about finding and working with a contemporary art gallery. She can also advise on editing and sequencing, websites and web presence, self-promotion. She has no interest in seeing nudes, but is open to all other work.
Rebekah Jacob
President
Rebekah Jacob Gallery
Charleston, SC
rebekahjacobgallery.com
Rebekah Jacob is the proprietor of the Rebekah Jacob Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina. She is an expert on the art and photography of the American South and represents several eminent southern artists. Jacob holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Mississippi and a certificate in appraisal studies in fine and decorate arts from New York University. She is also a certified member of the Appraisers Association of America.
Rose Wind Jerome
Program Associate
The Center for Photography at Woodstock
Woodstock, New York
www.cpw.org
Rose Wind Jerome is the Program Associate at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Founded in 1977, CPW brings forth its mission to provide opportunities in creation, discovery, and education, for emerging, underserved, and under-recognized voices in the photographic arts to an international audience. With year-round program offerings that include solo and curated group exhibitions, workshops, lectures, residencies, access to professional workspace, regional fellowship awards, and internships, CPW helps advance the development and careers of artists working in photography and related media. In its over 35 year history CPW has played a decisive role in the careers of some of today’s most respected image-makers. In 2010, CPW received the Spotlight award for having significantly altered the landscape of photography from the Lucie Foundation.
As Program Associate, Ms. Jerome is responsible for the implementation of CPW’s artist opportunities and works directly one-on-one with artists participating in CPW’s exhibitions, artist-residencies, and related programs. Prior to joining CPW she worked as a freelance photographer, first assistant, digital technician, studio manager and producer for a number of commercial fashion photographers and artists in London and New York. She has traveled extensively working with clients such as Nike, Vogue, GQ, Art and Commerce, and more. Rose has a degree in Photography from Daytona State College (2005) and graduated magna cum laude with a BS in Art History from CUNY BA in (2011).
As a portfolio reviewer, Ms. Jerome offers participants professional development, guidance, curatorial insight, her own perspectives as a working photographer, as well as the rich and diverse opportunities available to artists at CPW. She is most interested in viewing cohesive bodies of work centered around conceptually driven theme(s) that have been or are near completion and portraiture. She welcomes reviewing image-based work produced in a wide range of processes including video and new media. She looks forward to participating in mutually inspiring conversations with passionate image-makers. As CPW does not present traditional nudes, landscapes, floral, fashion, or stock photography, Ms. Jerome would prefer not to review such work.
Christina Leber
Curator
DZ BANK Art Collection
Frankfurt, Germany
www.dzbank-kunstsammlung.de
Christina Leber has been in charge of DZ BANK Art Collection since 2011. She has been working with the Collection for many years now and continues to use the Bank’s tried-and-tested concept. This year, the DZ BANK Art Collection, is celebrating its 20th anniversary, focusing exclusively on the kind of contemporary art that relies on photographic techniques. With 7,000 works of art by almost 700 international artists it is one of the largest collections of its kind. Represented in the collection are not only such artists as Joseph Beuys, Tacita Dean, Boris Michailov, Tracy Moffat, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Richard Prince but also young, up-and-coming artists from all over the world. Our staff members are offered eight new exhibitions for their storey every year and can choose one concept for their own floor per year. This process is conducted democratically by majority vote. Exhibitions covering 50 floors, which translates into around 3,000 works, are on permanent view at the Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt and in its various branches. The Bank also puts items from the Collection on public view – in the form of four exhibitions per year mounted at a special exhibition hall. External exhibitions and loans round out the Bank’s exhibition activities. Since 2008, 220 works from the DZ BANK Art Collection have been on permanent display at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt/Main. Here, the photographic works are on show, together with paintings and sculptures, in a 2000-metre exhibition hall. With 120 guided tours and 4 three-day children’s workshops per year the team explains photographic art to the general public. Every two years, the Collection provides two young, upcoming artists with bursaries. These artists are selected by the seven members of an international jury composed of artists, exhibition makers and professors. Direct applications are not possible. Christina Leber has headed up numerous exhibition protects and catalogues.
Prior to this, Christina Leber was Managing Director of the 2. Berlin Biennale from 1999 through 2001. She studied Art History, Catholic Theology and Education and, in 2001, was awarded a doctorate for her thesis on “Art collections in German business enterprises over the period between 1965 and 2000. She is interested in the diversity of approaches in photography. Everything from photogravure works to pieces created in the darkroom as the result of the effect of light on photographic paper plus digitally manipulated work plotted out using Indian ink, something that no longer counts as photographic work in the original sense of the words. Today the multiplicity of technical possibilities afforded by photography is more diverse than those offered by painting. Discovering these techniques and explaining them to the general public is something that she finds particularly fascinating.
Russell Lord
Freeman Family Curator of Photographs
New Orleans Museum of Art
New Orleans, LA
noma.org
Russell Lord is the Freeman Family Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Lord previously held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, and has written widely on 19th, 20th century and contemporary photographers. Most recently, he contributed an essay to the forthcoming EDWARD BURTYNSKY: WATER, a book about Burtynsky’s newest body of work to be published this September. He is currently working on two books, Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument, and a book about the permanent collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art. His recent exhibitions include “What is a Photograph?”, “Photography, Sequence, and Time,” and “Reinventing Nature: Art from the School of Fontainebleau.” Much of his research focuses on the relationships between photography and other visual media.
Richard McCabe
Curator of Photography
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
New Orleans, LA
www.ogdenmuseum.org
Richard McCabe was born in Mildenhall, England and grew up in the American South. In 1998, he received an MFA in Studio Art from Florida State University. That same year he moved to New York City. While in New York, McCabe worked within the exhibition departments of The International Center for Photography, Robert Miller Gallery and the El Museo De Barrio. He also taught photography at Pratt Institute, NYC and Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey. In 2005, Mr. McCabe moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. Mr. McCabe has been the Chief Preparator at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art since 2005. In 2010, Mr. McCabe became the Curator of Photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Carol McCusker, PhD
Curator of Photography
Harn Museum of Art
Gainesville, FL
www.harn.ufl.edu
Carol McCusker is Curator of Photography at the Harn Museum of Art, at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Previously she was Curator of Photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.
In 2009, she was invited to curate at the Lishui Photo Festival in China where her exhibition won first prize. She was Juror, with Peter MacGill and Chris Boot, for the International Center of Photography Infinity Award 2010.
Essays and exhibitions include American Noir: The Photographs of James Fee (2003), Andrea Modica: Treadwell/Fountain (2005), The Roads Most Traveled: Migration Photographs by Don Bartletti (2006), Terry Falke: Observations in an Occupied Wilderness (2006), Depth Charge, Communication Arts (2006), Public Privacy: Wendy Richmond’s Surreptitious Cellphone (2007), The Emperor’s River: Philipp Scholz Rittermann along China’s Grand Canal, Duke U Press (2011). Writing and curating from photography’s complete history, from Fox Talbot’s calotypes to cellphone videos, defines McCusker’s enthusiasm for the medium’s range and relevancy.
Paul Moakley
Deputy Photo Editor
TIME
New York, NY
www.time.com
Paul Moakley has been the deputy photo editor of TIME since 2010. He covers national news and special projects such as Person of the Year and the LightBox photo blog. Previously he was senior photo editor at Newsweek and photo editor of PDN (Photo District News). He lives at the Alice Austen House Museum, home of one of America’s earliest photographers, as caretaker and curator of the museum.
Robert Morton
President
Robert Morton Books
Redding Ridge, CT
www.robertmortonbooks.com
Robert Morton has more than forty years’ experience with photography books. He was a series editor at Time-Life Books, and editor-in-chief at New York Graphic Society (Bulfinch Press, Little Brown), Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and Aperture Foundation Book Division. During this time Morton edited books by Henri Cartier Bresson, Richard Avedon, Elliot Erwitt, O. Winston Link, and many others. In addition to launching work by established and emerging photographers, Morton’s numerous books include the monumental two-volume African Ceremonies by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher. Currently, Morton works as an agent, editor, and consultant for photographers seeking publication in books. In addition to helping to prepare presentations for publishers (selecting and sequencing photographs, deciding upon forms of presenting work, discussing desired formats and printing methods), Morton works with the artist and publisher to find and enlist authors for introductions and other texts. Robert is interested in seeing subject-based work of all kinds, especially book-worthy ideas, rather than abstract images or work of purely personal expression.
Kurt F. Mutchler
Senior Picture Editor
National Geographic Magazine
Washington, DC
ngm.nationalgeographic.com
Kurt Mutchler has worked at National Geographic magazine since 1994 producing more than 120 stories and 25 cover stories. During this time he has held many positions—photo editor, deputy director of photography and executive editor for photography. Currently, he is the senior photo editor for science. He is a former adjunct professor at
the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC, where he taught photojournalism. Prior to joining the magazine he was the photo and graphics editor of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, La. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology and The Ohio State University.
Rebecca Senf
Associate Curator of Photography
Center for Creative Photography
Phoenix Art Museum
www.creativephotography.org
www.phxart.org
Senf curates exhibitions drawn from the Center for Creative Photography’s holdings that go on view in a dedicated gallery at the Phoenix Art Museum. Some of her past exhibitions include Richard Avedon: Photographer of Influence; Human Nature: the Photographs of Barbara Bosworth; Odyssey: the Photographs of Linda Connor; Charting the Canyon: Photographs by Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe; and Face to Face: 150 Years of Photographic Portraiture. Senf went to undergraduate school at the University of Arizona, studying the History of Photography, and subsequently spent ten years in Boston, Massachusetts where she earned a Ph.D. in Art History at Boston University. Senf has served on various selection panels and nominating committees and has been an invited reviewer for Photolucida’s Portfolio Review, Photo Alliance’s Our World Portfolio Review, Houston FotoFest, Critical Mass, and will be reviewing at PhotoNOLA this December. Her publications include Reconstucting the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe (2012) and Ansel Adams From the Lane Collection (2005, reprinted in 2013).
Senf is open to reviewing any type of work, although she is most likely to be able to comment on photography that is created as personal expression (i.e. yes to landscapes, figure studies, still lives, portraits, auto-biographical work, abstracts, etc. in color, black-and-white, alternative processes, digital or film based – not as helpful with commercial work or photojournalism). Special interests are panoramas and work related to Mexico and US/Mexico borderlands. She can comment on every step of the art making process from idea to object making, from editing to exhibition presentation, and from sequencing to publication. Senf’s primary role as a reviewer is to provide constructive criticism and feedback from the museum curatorial perspective, but acquisitions and exhibitions are possible.
Rob Shaeffer
Acquisitions Editor at Large
Princeton Architectural Press
New York, NY
www.papress.com
Rob Shaeffer has worked in publishing for 25 years in various capacities for Chronicle Books, Distributed Arts Publishers, and currently at Princeton Architectural Press.
Lois Conner: Beijing Contemporary and Imperial forthcoming in Spring 2014 to coincide with a traveling exhibition originating at the Cleveland Museum of Art is the first photography book he’s acquired.
Rob is interested in reviewing all types of photography, especially projects with a focused singular narrative.
Additional photography books published by Princeton Architectural Press over the past year include, The Big Picture: America in Panorama, Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography, and The Disappearance of Darkness: Photography at the End of the Analog Era.
Sarah Stolfa
Executive Director
Philadelphia Photo Arts Center
Philadelphia, PA
www.philaphotoarts.org
Stolfa received her BA in photography from Drexel University and her MFA in photography from the Yale University School of Art. Stolfa has taught at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the University of Delaware, Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. She has participated in countless group shows and solo shows and her work is collected both publicly and privately. In June 2009, she published her first book, The Regulars. Stolfa is the Founder and Executive Director at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to the study, practice and appreciation of contemporary photography.
Ms. Stolfa would prefer to review work that is ready for exhibition.
Lisa Sutcliffe
Curator of Photography
Milwaukee Art Museum
Milwaukee, WI
mam.org
Lisa Sutcliffe is Curator of Photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum. She is currently overseeing the reinstallation of MAM’s permanent collection of photographs and organizing a commission with Magnum photographers to bring the fourth iteration of Postcards from America to Milwaukee. Previously, she served as Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she organized Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories and The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography, the first survey of SFMOMA’s internationally renowned collection of Japanese photography. She has organized film screenings, lectures and panels with internationally acclaimed artists, and written about contemporary art and photography for diverse publications. She holds degrees in the history of art from Boston University and Wellesley College.
Mary Virginia Swanson
Marketing Consultant
M.V.Swanson & Associates
Tucson, AZ & NYC
mvswanson.com
Mary Virginia Swanson has been involved with presenting, publishing, and licensing fine art imagery for over 20 years. Her experience encompasses diverse markets for photography, and she is widely respected for sharing her knowledge and insights through her writing and teaching. She currently works individually with talented photographers to strategize their careers, and serves as an advisor to many arts organizations. Swanson is the author of “Finding Your Audience: An Introduction to Marketing Your Photographs” and co-author with Darius D. Himes of “Publish Your Photography Book.”
Ms. Swanson is happy to advise participating artists on what markets are most likely to respond positively to their imagery. In addition to viewing examples of final prints, she encourages those who meet with her to bring samples of marketing materials they are currently using to promote themselves, and/or mock-ups of catalogues / monographs in the planning stages. Sharing your website during your session will allow her to advise on its effectiveness in presenting your work to desired collectors, collecting institutions, and others.
Takeshi Arthur Thornton
Co-Founder
Tokyo Photo
www.tokyophoto.org
Takeshi Arthur Thornton is co-founder of Tokyo Photo, Japan’s largest art fair dedicated to photography. He is an associate professor at Yokohama National University and a visiting professor at East China Normal University. Currently, he is a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where his research centers on culture-led urban regeneration of post-industrial cities. Mr. Thornton holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is most interested in reviewing artistic and documentary bodies of work, and less interested in purely commercial work.
April Watson
Associate Curator of Photography
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kansas City, MO
www.nelson-atkins.org
April M. Watson holds a doctorate in Art History from the University of Kansas and a masters degree in Art History from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She has a BFA in graphic design from Alfred University. In fall 2013, Watson served as the photography curator for Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet, an exhibition of paintings and photographs co-organized with the Saint Louis Art Museum. She has curated and co-curated several exhibitions from the permanent collection, including Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans, a career retrospective of the artist; About Face: Contemporary Portraiture; Thinking Photography: Five Decades at the Kansas City Art Institute; Time in the West: Photographs by Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe and Mark Ruwedel; Human/Nature: Recent European Landscape Photography; and Hide & Seek: Picturing Childhood.
Prior to joining the Nelson-Atkins in 2007, Watson served as a curatorial research assistant at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and was an NEA curatorial intern at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. Watson has contributed writing and scholarship to numerous exhibitions and catalogues for the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Center for Creative Photography, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. She also wrote for the monograph The Art of Frederick Sommer: Photography, Drawing, Collage (2005).
Jessie Wender
Photo Editor
The New Yorker
New York, NY
www.newyorker.com
Jessie Wender is a Photo Editor at The New Yorker. She is primarily responsible for commissioning and producing the magazine’s portraiture, and photography for the arts and culture features and for the “Goings On About Town” section. She also writes for that magazine’s Photo Booth blog. Prior to working at The New Yorker, she worked in the photo departments of Esquire and Time Inc., and before entering publishing she worked for the photo agency VII, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and as the producer of Photo LA.
Clint Willour
Curator
Galveston Arts Center
Galveston, TX
www.galvestonartscenter.org
Clint Willour has been the curator of the Galveston Arts Center for the past twenty-three years, and an art professional for forty years. He is active on boards of numerous arts organizations in Texas and has served as a juror for over eighty competitions and has curated over 200 photography exhibitions in his career. He serves regularly as a guest curator for institutions throughout the state of Texas and beyond – most recently for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and DiverseWorks Artspace, Houston. He is known for the multi-disciplinary focus of his taste.
He lectures and writes regularly on contemporary photography – in books on Keith Carter, Sean Perry, Dornith Doherty, Dianne Kornberg and Nealy Blau as well as for the on-line magazine Glasstire and the Houston Center for Photography publication Spot.
Clint is currently a member of the Exhibitions Committee of the Houston Center for Photography, the Photography Accessions Sub-committee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Art Board of FotoFest, Houston, and a board member of Photo Forum at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He has been a meeting place reviewer at every FotoFest, Houston, Photolucida (Portland) every Critical Mass (Portland), as well as reviewing portfolios for organizations in Texas, Oklahoma, Santa Fe, New Orleans, Arles, Montreal, Barcelona, Beijing and Buenos Aires.
He does not wish to view commercial photography (except photojournalism) or work he has previously reviewed.
Stephen Wirtz
Co-owner
Stephen Wirtz Gallery
San Francisco, CA
www.wirtzgallery.com
Stephen Wirtz earned a BA from the University of California Berkeley in History, and an MAT from Antioch College (Teaching). He previously ran the Art Deco Gallery in Oakland/San Francisco, before founding the Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco, CA.
The Stephen Wirtz Gallery has a long history of exhibiting historical and contemporary photography (as well as painting and sculpture), as well as a strong interest in “vernacular” photography. The gallery represents emerging and internationally exhibited artists who reflect the non-objective and conceptually based program of the gallery.
Mr. Wirtz prefers to review more challenging, less conservative work—he is generally not inclined towards very “abstract” or hand colored photography.
Tim B. Wride
William and Sarah Ross Soter Curator of Photography
Norton Museum of Art
West Palm Beach, FL
www.norton.org
Tim B. Wride is the William and Sarah Ross Soter Curator of Photography at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. Since joining the museum in 2012, Tim has originated exhibitions that have highlighted Florida photographers and coordinated the inaugural Rudin Prize which showcases contemporary photographers. He is currently working on an exhibition about Photography and the Everglades.
Prior to joining the Norton Museum, Tim was a Curator in the Department of Photographs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for 14 years, Tim curated over 50 exhibitions, authored and contributed to a dozen books, and has lectured, participated in panels, juried exhibitions, and provided portfolio reviews internationally. In 2004, Tim became the founding Executive Director of the No Strings Foundation, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that provides individual artist grants to U.S. photographers.
Tim is a voracious consumer of photographic images. He likes nothing better than to look at photographs and talk to smart photographers about their work.
