About Susan Ressler Photography
Susan R. Ressler
Susan Ressler is an author, educator and social documentary photographer. She has been making
photographs for about 50 years, and her work is in the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, the
Library Archives Canada, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and many other important collections.
She has been widely exhibited, both nationally and internationally, with solo shows at venues that include Nexus
Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta), Center for Creative Studies (Detroit), Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (Lincoln, NE)
and BC Space, (Laguna Beach, CA) among others. Ressler edited the book Women Artists of the American West
(McFarland, 2003), a scholarly anthology on under-represented women artists west of the Mississippi,
and was Head of the Photography Area at Purdue University, where she taught photographic practice,
criticism and history from 1981-2004. Ressler received an MFA from the University of New Mexico fine
art photography program in 1986. She is Professor Emerita, Department of Visual and Performing Arts,
Purdue University, and she currently resides in Taos, New Mexico.
Her first book, Executive Order: Images of 1970s Corporate America, with an essay by American studies scholar Mark Rice, was recently published by Daylight books in Spring 2018. Her new book, Dreaming California: High End, Low End, No End in Sight, also published by Daylight, will be released in May 2023.
Career highlights and awards include:
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Bronze Medal, PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Paris, for Understanding Israel book series 2015
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Honorable Mention, Director’s Choice Award, Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO 2015
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Honorable Mention, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary 2015
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SPE publication, Susan Ressler’ s Los Angeles: High End in Exposure, vol. 46:1 2013
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SPE Award for Excellence in Historical, Critical and Theoretical Writing in Photography 2011
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Harwood Museum of Art purchase: Abrivado (archival pigment print made in Nimes, France) 2011
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Library Archives of Canada purchase: boxed set portfolio of 1973 documentary of Quebec First Nations 2009
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Commentary, Through the Lens of the City: NEA Photography Surveys of the 1970s (Mark Rice) 2005
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Finalist, Willard Van Dyke Memorial Award in Photography, NM Council on Photography 2005
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Semi-Finalist, Gordon Parks Photography Competition, Ft. Scott, KS 2004
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Publication, Women Artists of the American West (editor and author of three essays) (McFarland) 2003
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Purdue University Academic Investment Grant (for distance learning development, women artists) 1997
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Society for Contemporary Photography Fellowship, Kansas City, MO 1993
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Commentary, Art of the Electronic Age (full page color reproduction, Frank Popper, Abrams) 1993
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Smithsonian American Art Museum acquisition, “The Los Angeles Documentary Project” 1990
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National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship 1983
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Publication, “The Los Angeles Documentary Project,” Camera 2/81E, Luzern, Switzerland 1981
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National Endowment for the Arts Documentary Survey, “The Los Angeles Documentary Project” 1979
News:
2016 Fraction Magazine Feature Issue 93
2011 Museum Purchase
The Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico
Link to the image, Abrivado, Nimes, Provence, here.
Abrivado, Nimes, Provence. Archival ink jet, 18x28 in., 2009
Exhibitions
New Mexorado: Artists Living & Working in the Albuquerque-Denver Corridor
The Harwood Museum of Art, March 05 - June 19, 2011
Target, NYC, Archival ink jet, 16x20, 2010
Society for Photographic Education (SPE), Marion Center for Photography, Santa Fe, New Mexico
November - December, 2011
Choose Shoes, Los Angeles, CA, Archival ink jet, 22x24 in., 2011
Awards
2011 SPE Conference Award for Excellence in Historical, Critical and Theoretical Writing
Photography as Medium for Co-Evolutionary Animal-Human Conversations (with Stephanie S. Turner)
Cover image, Fall 2011 issue of exposure, vol. 44:2, by Diane Fox