Catherine Opie Art
American photographer Catherine Opie has not only documented the cultural shift of the last few decades, she has also lived it. Once an outsider shooting her own “fringe community,” Opie is celebrated today for her evocative black and white and color photography and her confrontational examination of gender conventions. Through her lens, she investigates themes of individual identity and community.
Opie was born in Ohio in 1961 and spent her childhood in the Midwest. When she was 13, her family moved to California, where she set up a darkroom in the spare bedroom of the new house and started taking photographs. She received her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1985, followed by an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988.
Opie started gaining recognition in the 1990s for her intimate studio portraits featuring other lesbian, gay and transgender artists and personal friends. Harkening back to traditional Renaissance-style portrait paintings, the photographs helped increase the visibility of marginalized communities as the fight for LGBTQ rights took shape.
Opie has embraced a range of additional subject matter. She traveled across the United States to photograph widely varying but quintessentially American groups, from high school football players to members of a staunchly conservative political movement. She documented ice-fishing sheds in Minnesota, the 2008 US presidential inauguration, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and anything and everything that caught her interest. For 2015’s 700 Nimes Road (DelMonico Books/Prestel), Opie trained her eclectic lens on the house and personal belongings of Elizabeth Taylor.
Opie has been teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles, since 2001 and has garnered numerous prestigious awards for her work, including the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, the Guggenheim’s “Catherine Opie: American Photographer” exhibition spanned four floors and attracted thousands of people every day until it closed.
Despite her recognition and accolades, Opie continues to prefer subversive imagery. "Photographs are different these days," she told Introspective magazine in 2020. "The ones I like best are from those people who are bearing witness, like images of the protestors."
On 1stDibs, find original Catherine Opie photography and prints.
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Pigment
Early 2000s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
C Print
1990s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
C Print
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Paper, Pigment
20th Century Catherine Opie Art
Silver Gelatin
1990s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
C Print
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
1970s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Ink, Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Digital, Digital Pigmen...
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
20th Century Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Paper, Digital
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Paper, Digital
20th Century Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Lithograph, Silver Gelatin
Early 2000s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Color, Photographic Paper, Pigment, Archival Paper, Giclée, Archival Pig...
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
C Print, Archival Paper, Color, Archival Pigment, Polaroid
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Giclée
2010s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Pigment
1990s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
1990s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
Early 2000s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
Archival Pigment
1990s Contemporary Catherine Opie Art
C Print
20th Century Catherine Opie Art
Silver Gelatin