CurrentSolo Exhibition
Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna
Rosalie Thorne McKenna
January 31, 2026 - May 16, 2026
Opening Reception: January 30, 2026 at 5:30 PM
About the Exhibition
This exhibition is the first survey of the prolific career of American photographer Rosalie (Rollie) Thorne McKenna (1918–2003). After graduating from Vassar College in 1940, McKenna worked independently as a sought-after architectural and portrait photographer, making unique yet underrecognized contributions to American modernism and documentary photography. She made iconic portraits of many artists and writers, including W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Alexander Calder, Truman Capote, T. S. Eliot, Laura Gilpin, Henry Moore, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, and Eudora Welty.
Curator
Mary-Kay Lombino, Emily Hargroves Fisher '57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator, and Jessica D. Brier, Curator of Photography
Tags
photographyarchitectural photographyportrait photography20th-century American artmodernismdocumentary photographywomen photographers