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.
30 Minutes After Inauguration
By Catherine Opie
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Catherine Opie (b. 1961) is a renowned American photographer best known for her bold portraits, mysterious landscapes, and thought-provoking explorations of identity, community, gend...
C Print
Curators, Catherine Opie Signed Vintage Photograph
By Catherine Opie
Located in Surfside, FL
CATHERINE OPIE (b. 1961, OH), SIGNED Vintage limited edition Photograph Born in Sandusky, OH, Catherine Opie received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from the Cali...
Silver Gelatin
$675
H 30.32 in W 30.32 in D 1.97 in
Academic Books, Hanoi - Multi-color Asian Photography
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
Shot in Hanoi in 2016, there are so many beautiful elements to this piece. The lines, the tone and the abstract nature of the books allowing you to make it your own bookcase. This a...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
$245
H 15.75 in W 21.26 in D 1.38 in
Dot's Diner, Bisbee, Arizona - American Color Photography
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
'Dot's Diner' part of Richard Heeps 'Dream in Colour' Series, featuring a classic American Diner has gorgeous colours of the glowing neon lights in the twilight and a cool vibe remin...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
$681
H 27.56 in W 40.16 in D 0.04 in
Tape Collection, AILA Blue - Contemporary Pop Art Color Photography
By Heidler & Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
AILA Blue, from the Heidler & Heeps Tape Collection - The B Sides. The Heidler & Heeps collaborations are creative representations of Natasha Heidler and Richard Heeps’, personal pas...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
Stay On Target - limited edition - Pop Art Print Oversize
By BATIK
Located in London, GB
Stay On Target- archival pigment print by the London based contemporary pop art image creator and artist, BATIK. Measures 60 x 40" inches / 151 x 101 cm paper size limited to 3 only this size. signed and numbered by the artist. certificate of authenticity provided. unframed. (Framing available - please enquire) This piece is a modern reworking of the infamous scene in North By North West by Alfred Hitchcock where Cary Grant is hounded by an aeroplane, in this case, a Star Wars Tie Fighter...
Black and White, Archival Pigment
$954
H 33.47 in W 39.38 in D 1.97 in
The Last Kiss, Milan - Book Kiosk, Italian color photography
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
'The Last Kiss', from Richard Heeps series, 'A Short History of Milan', featuring a traditional Italian street book kiosk. A Short History of Milan began in November 2018 for a spe...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
$245
H 15.75 in W 18.51 in D 1.38 in
Utopian Foyer II, Milan - Brutalist Architecture Urban Color Photograph Framed
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
Utopian Foyer II, from Richard Heeps series A Short History of Milan, which began as a special project for the 2018 Affordable Art Fair Milan. It was well received and the artwork ha...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
New World Order Signed Limited Edition
By BATIK
Located in London, GB
New World Order by BATIK Satirical pop art artwork featuring Vladimir Putin, VP J.D. Vance, Donald Trump and Elon Musk in WW2 war rooms. BATIK is a London based fine artist and im...
Black and White, Archival Pigment
Torino I (from Under Construction series)
By Massimo Listri
Located in New York, NY
The photographer is based in Florence, and is fascinated how his architectural subject matter allows him to control the composition of his image. For many years he has photographed c...
C Print
$954
H 44.1 in W 33.47 in D 1.97 in
ICES Cornflower Blue, Bexhill-on-Sea - Pop Art Typography Photography
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
ICES Cornflower Blue, bold pop art street photography from Richard Heeps' series, On-Sea. Created as an ode to Richard's childhood visits to his grandparents living on the Sussex co...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
Audrey Atomic by BATIK
By BATIK
Located in London, GB
Audrey Atomic by BATIK Pop Artwork of the iconic Audrey Hepburn during filming of Breakfast At Tiffany's. BATIK is an increasingly collectable pop artist currently living and wor...
Archival Pigment
$681
H 25.01 in W 31.89 in D 0.04 in
Salt Water Taffy in the Mist, Atlantic City, New Jersey - American Color Photo
By Richard Heeps
Located in Cambridge, GB
Salt Water Taffy in the Mist, Atlantic City your eye takes you past the Boardwalk Empire facade down the atmospherically misty boardwalk. Photograph from Richard Heeps' Jersey Shore ...
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
Stay On Target - Hand Signed Limited Edition
By BATIK
Located in London, GB
Stay On Target - Hand Signed Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print This piece is a modern reworking of the infamous scene in North By North West by ...
Black and White, Archival Pigment
Curators, Catherine Opie Signed Vintage Photograph
By Catherine Opie
Located in Surfside, FL
CATHERINE OPIE (b. 1961, OH), SIGNED Vintage limited edition Photograph Born in Sandusky, OH, Catherine Opie received a BFA from San Francisco Art Inst...
Silver Gelatin
Trash
By Catherine Opie
Located in New York, NY
Chromogenic print Signed on label, verso Accompanied by a letter from the artist explaining the background of the photograph. 70 x 30 inches, image This artwork is offered by Clam...
C Print
Curators, Catherine Opie Signed Vintage Photograph
By Catherine Opie
Located in Surfside, FL
CATHERINE OPIE (b. 1961, OH), SIGNED Vintage limited edition Photograph Born in Sandusky, OH, Catherine Opie received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Opie's work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan: The Walker Art Center, Minneopolis, MN; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK; Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK; Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy; and Ginza Art Space, Tokyo, Japan. She is currently a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA. Catherine Opie has become known for her photographic portraits of gay communities and American urban landscapes ranging from large color images of Beverly Hills and Bel Air homes to small jewel-like silver gelatin prints of the Los Angeles freeways. Moving from the territory of the body to the structure of the city and its surrounding landscape, Opie is engaged in what curator and writer, Joshua Decter describes as "cultural portraiture". Her subject matters vary from the Minneapolis/St. Paul vernacular landscape of skyways, to large-format images of ice-fishing houses and portraits of a clan of surfers who await the perfect wave. As such, Opie has become one of the nation's most important photographers today documenting the American scene through regional landscapes and cultural portraiture. Since the prominent debut of her classically composed but often shocking images capturing Los Angeles's gay subculture, Opie has continued to explore the rich terrain of cultural portraiture and the documentary tradition in America. In its compelling clarity and inherent variation, her work reveals a deeply personal commitment to the dignity of her subjects. SELECT RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2016 'Catherine Opie: Portraits', Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (1/30 - 5/22) 'Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road', MoCA Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, CA (1/23 - 5/8) 'Catherine Opie: 700 Nimes Road', Lehmann Maupin, New York NY (1/14 - 2/27) 'Catherine Opie: Portraits and Landscapes', Lehmann Maupin, New York NY (1/14 - 2/27) 2015 'Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim' (group exhibition), Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY 'Catherine Opie: Portraits and Landscapes', Wexner Center for the Arts, Minneapolis, MN 2013 'Catherine Opie', Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA 2014 'The Gang: Photographs by Catherine Opie', Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK 2012 'The Importance of Being Photographed' (group exhibition), University of South Florida (USF) Contemporary Art Museum Institute for Research in Art (IRA), Tampa, FL 'Catherine Opie: High School Football', Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY 'Catherine Opie Photographs Cliff May...
Silver Gelatin