Deborah Willis (artist)

Early life and education

Deborah Willis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth and Thomas Willis on February 5, 1948. Willis is the mother of conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas. Her father was a photographer as well, and her close familial ties are apparent in works such as Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II (1992), and Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas (2009).

Willis's degrees include a B.F.A. in photography from Philadelphia College of Art in 1975; an M.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute in 1979; an M.A. in art history from City College of New York in 1986; and a Ph.D. from the Cultural Studies Program of George Mason University in 2001.

Career

During her early career, Deborah Willis sought to find and recognize photography created by African Americans. She also aims to document and portray the beauty of the female body through her works. With the help of Richard Newman from Garland Publishing, she was able to create her first book Black Photographers, 1840-1940: an Illustrated Bio-bibliography (1985), which included more than three hundred photographers in the book. As she described in an interview, many of the photographers were ready to throw out their work due to lack of recognition before the book. Continuing with her goal of recognizing black photographers, Deborah Willis came out with a second installment called “An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography of Black Photographers, 1940-1988” (1989) which also included contemporary photographers, as she previously intended to in the first installment.

Willis was the curator of photographs and the prints/exhibition coordinator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library between 1980 and 1992, after which she became exhibitions curator at the Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution for eight years. Between 2000 and 2001,she was Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then joined the faculty of New York University as a professor of photography and imaging in the Tisch School of Arts, eventually become the chair of that department. Interested in "historic and cultural documentation and preservation", she has published "some twenty books on African-American photographers and on the representation of blacks in photographic imagery." Among them are Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present (2002), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), and Black: A Celebration of a Culture (2014). Also known as "Deb Willis," she survived a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2001. She was the curator of photographs and the prints/exhibition coordinator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library between 1980 and 1992.

Willis co-produced the 2014 documentary film Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, which is based on her book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present. In 2008, she organized the exhibition Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits for the National Museum of African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution.

Willis's work was included in the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.

Other activities

Willis served on the jury that chose the winners of the Rome Prize for the 2023–24 cycle, co-chaired by Naomi Beckwith and Fred Wilson.

Recognition

Willis has received numerous awards and honors, including:

• 1995: Infinity Award for Writing, International Center of Photography.
• 2000: MacArthur Fellow
• 2003: Honorary doctorate, Maryland Institute College of Art
• 2005: Fletcher Fellow, Fletcher Foundation
• 2005: Guggenheim Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
• 2013–2014: Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University
• 2020: Award for Outstanding Service to Photography and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
• 2023: Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art
• 2023: Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Yale University

Artistic and photographic works

As an artist and photographer, Willis was represented by Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami and Charles Guice Contemporary in Berkeley, California. Her exhibitions have included:

• Progeny, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, 2008. The exhibition traveled as "Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas" in 2009 to New York and to Sacramento, California.
• Regarding Beauty, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2003, containing "photographs and autobiographical quilts".
• Deborah Willis: Tied to Memory, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, 2000.
• Deborah Willis, Hughley Gallery & Objects, Atlanta, 1992, involving "small narrative quilts built around historical photographs, documents and family snapshots".

Willis is also a quilter, also incorporating photographic images into her pieces. Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II from 1992 (27 x 34"), for example, is a fabric collage with added button, tie clips, and pins forming "a supple, irregularly shaped memorial." The work references multiple generations and genders, as it elicits memories of fathers teaching their sons, boys maturing into adult clothes and rituals, and women adjusting their husbands' knots. At the same time, however, the artist's cutting and reconfiguration of the ties raises the possibility that such nostalgic references might be outmoded or rejected. This multivalent collage "also memorializes black soldiers who fought in World War II", since Willis includes photos of soldiers on linen fabric collaged onto the tie fabric. Willis's focus on the African-American experience is evident in Tribute to the Hottentot Venus: Bustle (1995), a fabric and photo linen collage (23 x 28") in a triptych format. Small images of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called "Hottentot Venus", appear in the left and right sections together with pieced fabric silhouettes of her body. The central image in the triptych is of a late 19th-century dress with prominent bustle, its shape emphasizing the buttocks. Willis explains that her use of quilting as a technique "reminds us who we are and who and what our ancestors have been to us in the larger society".

Her quilts have been included in the following exhibits and catalogs:

• Story Quilts: Photography and Beyond, Black Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1999, Curated by photographer and installation artist Pat Ward Williams, the exhibition showcased the works of three African-American artists—Willis, Kyra E. Hicks and Dorothy Taylor.
• Tribute to the Hottentot Venus quilt, 1992.

Curated exhibitions

Exhibitions that Willis has curated include:

• Posing Beauty in African American Culture, which opened Fall 2009 at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and went on to tour worldwide.
• Reflections in Black, Arts and Industries Building, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2000, on African-American photography. The exhibition in whole or in part traveled widely in the U.S. between 2000 and 2003.
  • Reflections in Black: A Reframing, on display September–October 2025 at New York University's Cooper Square Gallery, ahead of a new edition of Reflections in Black being released in November.
• Constructed Images: New Photography, which traveled between 1989 and 1992.

Publications

• Willis, Deborah, Leigh Raiford, and Sarah Lewis, editors (2025). Coreen Simpson: A Monograph. New York: Aperture.

References

References

1. The HistoryMakers. [http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/deborah-willis-41 Deborah Willis biography], ArtMakers, June 27, 2007. Accessed August 1, 2009.
2. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. [http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.1142727/k.2A89/Fellows_List__July_2000.htm MacArthur Fellows. July 2000]. {{webarchive. link. (2007-09-29 Accessed August 1, 2009.)
3. New York University. [https://photo.tisch.nyu.edu/page/program.html Maurice Kanbar Institute. Photography & Imaging]. Accessed August 1, 2009.
4. "The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2024".
5. [https://debwillisphoto.com/resume Deborah Willis Curriculum Vitae – March, 2013.]
6. [http://www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com/artists/willis/resume_willis.html Deborah Willis résumé] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-02-17 . Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. Accessed August 1, 2009.)
7. Thomas, Deb Willis and Hank Willis. (20 December 2017). "A mother and son united by love and art".
8. "DEBORAH WILLIS". Callaloo.
9. "PICTURING US: The Work of Deborah Willis {{!}} John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute".
10. (2020-12-04). "Why Deborah Willis Thinks the Photobook Can Be Transformative".
11. Duke University. [http://cds.aas.duke.edu/courses/brady.html Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-12-28 . Retrieved August 2, 2009.)
12. Farrington, Lisa E.. (2005). "Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists". Oxford University Press.
13. New York University. [http://admin.tisch.nyu.edu/object/WillisD.html Faculty directory. Photography & Imaging. Deborah Willis, Ph.D.] {{Webarchive. link. (2012-03-05 Accessed August 1, 2009.)
14. Royster-Hemby, Christina. [http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=9785 "Reflected in the lens. After years of chronicling the African-American experience, photographer and former MICA professor Deborah Willis turns the camera on herself".] ''Baltimore City Paper'', March 30, 2005. Accessed August 2, 2009.
15. Gonzalez, David. (February 11, 2014). "African-American History, From Family Albums to Museum Walls". The New York Times.
16. "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s".
17. Maximilíano Durón (24 April 2023), [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/rome-prize-2024-dread-scott-nao-bustamante-1234665370/Seven Artists Win Coveted Rome Prize, Including Dread Scott and Nao Bustamante]{{Dead link. (January 2026)
18. "[https://www.icp.org/support-icp/infinity-awards-1985-1995 Infinity Awards 1985–1995]", [[International Center of Photography]]. August 1, 2014.
19. Associated Press, "12 get grants for efforts on race - Anita Hill among honorees given $50,000 each". ''Washington Post'', April 16, 2005.
20. [http://www.gf.org/fellows/15847-deborah-willis "Deborah Willis"], John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2009. {{Webarchive. link. (June 22, 2011 .)
21. "Alumni Fellows".
22. Greenberger, Alex. (2022-12-16). "Legendary Photo Historian and Artist Deborah Willis Wins $200,000 Award".
23. "Deborah Willis {{!}} Yale 2023".
24. Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. [http://www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com/artists/willis/index_willis.html Artist's page.] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-05-24 Accessed August 1, 2009.)
25. Charles Guice Contemporary. [http://www.charlesguice.com/artists_dw.html Deborah Willis] {{Webarchive. link. (2010-02-25 . Accessed August 1, 2009.)
26. Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. [http://www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com/exhibitions.html Exhibitions 2005-2009.] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-06-04 Accessed August 4, 2009.)
27. [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wallach/exhibitions/Progeny.html "Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas"]. Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. Accessed August 2, 2009.
28. Martell, Chris. "Beautiful dreamers - photographer focuses on the threads of beauty that run through the African-American community". ''Wisconsin State Journal'', February 15, 2003.
29. Schmitz-Rizzo, Margaret. "Kemper Museum displays artist's keepsakes". ''Kansas City Star'', July 5, 2000.
30. Fox, Catherine. Art review. ''Atlanta Journal and Constitution'', August 28, 1992.
31. (July 17, 1995). "Patchwork Stories: By Combining Photography and Quilting, Three Artists Create a Unique Medium for Commenting on the Issues of the Past--and Present". [[Los Angeles Times]].
32. (2010). "Black Venus, 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot"". Temple University Press.
33. (1996). "Visual griots : works by four African-American photographers : Cary Beth Cryor, Stephen Marc, William Earle Williams, Deborah Willis". Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County.
34. John-Hall, Annette. "Light and shadow. While Smithsonian curator Deborah Willis is proud of 'Reflections in Black,' an exhibition of African American photography, suffering clouds her satisfaction. On opening night, her beloved nephew – who helped with the research – was killed in Philadelphia". ''Philadelphia Inquirer'', April 2, 2000.
35. "Traveling exhibition venues (for Reflections in Black)".
36. Boxer, Sarah. (November 9, 2001). "Photography review; Black Photographers Who Are Trying To Get Blackness Right". The New York Times.
37. (September 17, 2025). "'A sense of self and self-worth': Deborah Willis on the importance of Black photography". [[The Guardian]].
38. Fraser, C. Gerald. (August 6, 1989). "Harlem curator helps redefine photography". The New York Times.
39. Smith, Virginia. Art review - "Constructed Images: New Photography". ''Atlanta Journal and Constitution'', October 31, 1990.
40. Hagen, Charles. (August 23, 1991). "Review/photography; How racial and cultural differences affect art". The New York Times.