Aline Smithson: Self & Others
April 7–May 1, 2016

  • Inquiring Minds from Paradise by Aline Smithson

    Inquiring Minds from Paradise by Aline Smithson

  • #5 from People I Don’t Know by Aline Smithson

    #5 from People I Don’t Know by Aline Smithson

  • Yin Yang by Aline Smithson

    Yin Yang by Aline Smithson

  • Fur from Daughter by Aline Smithson

    Fur from Daughter by Aline Smithson

  • Sisters from Recreating History by Aline Smithson

    Sisters from Recreating History by Aline Smithson

  • #14 from Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother by Aline Smithson

    #14 from Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother by Aline Smithson

  • Pink Feathers by Aline Smithson

    Pink Feathers by Aline Smithson

  • Daisies and Red Nails from Hollywood at Home by Aline Smithson

    Daisies and Red Nails from Hollywood at Home by Aline Smithson

  • Lucy in Teal from Revisiting Beauty by Aline Smithson

    Lucy in Teal from Revisiting Beauty by Aline Smithson

  • Cleo with a Mirror by Aline Smithson

    Cleo with a Mirror by Aline Smithson

Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography is an almost 20 year culmination of portrait photographs captured by award-winning photographer Aline Smithson. Beginning with her early forays into black and white work, produced as darkroom silver gelatin prints, she photographed the world around her considering the poignancy of childhood and the pathos of aging and relationships. The book continues with her hand painted photographs featuring her defining series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother, where she combines humor and family to create a universal expression of motherhood. The book is completed by her color projects that revisit beauty, the essence of childhood, and an examination of created realities. Aline brings a background in painting and fashion to her images, but at the heart of her work is her ability to recognize the inner self of her subjects. The photographer considers all her portraits a reflection of herself and the stories she wants to tell, and in that way, she has created a visual language that is her own unique autobiography.

Sponsored by

Griffin Museum of Photography

Curators

Paula Tognarelli
Paula Tognarelli griffinmuseum.org

Executive Director and Curator, Griffin Museum of Photography

Paula Tognarelli is the Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography. The Griffin Museum of Photography located in Winchester outside Boston, Massachusetts, is a small nonprofit photography museum whose mission is to promote an appreciation of photographic art and a broader understanding of its visual, emotional and social impact. The museum houses 3 galleries and maintains 4 satellite gallery spaces and several virtual on-line galleries as well.

Ms. Tognarelli is responsible for producing over 60 exhibitions a year at the Griffin and its surrounding satellite spaces. She holds an M.S. in Arts Administration from Boston University, BA from Regis College, is a graduate of the New England School of Photography and is a current candidate for her Masters in Education at Lesley University. She has juried and curated exhibitions internationally including American Photo’s Image of the Year, Photoville’s Fence, Flash Forward Festival, Deland Arts Festival, Center for Fine Art Photography, PDN’s Photo Annual, PDN’s Curator Awards, the Kontinent Awards, the Filter Festival in Chicago and the Lishui International Photography Festival in Lishui, China. She is a regular participant in national and local portfolio reviews, has been a panelist and featured speaker at photography events and conferences including MacWorld. She has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography Fellowships and is a nominator for the Prix Pictet in Geneva, Switzerland and a nominator for the Heinz Prize in Pennsylvania. She is a past member of the Xerox Technical Advisory Board. She is on the advisory board of the New England School of Photography and the Flash Forward Festival Boston.

Artists

Aline Smithson

Founder and Editor, Lenscratch

After a career as a New York Fashion Editor and working along side the greats of fashion photography, Aline Smithson discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. Now represented by galleries in the U.S. and Europe and published throughout the world, Aline continues to create her award-winning photography with a 50-year-old camera. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including PDN (the cover), The PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Soura, Visura, Fraction, Artworks, Lenswork Extended, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines. She has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, The Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona, and Wallspace Gallery in Seattle. In 2012, Aline received the Rising Star Award from the Griffin Museum of Photography for her contributions to the photography community. She writes and edits the blog, Lenscratch, has been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine, is a contributing writer for a variety of publications, and has been curating and jurying exhibitions for a number of galleries photo organizations. She has been an annual juror for Critical Mass, and a reviewer at Photo Festivals around the coutnry. Though she was nominated for The Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award from 2008 – 2012 and for The Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 200, she considers her children her greatest achievement. Aline lives and teaches in Los Angeles.