Sandra Matthews is an artist working in photographic collage, and a writer who comments on cultural issues in photography. A graduate of Harvard University (BA) and the State University of New York at Buffalo (MFA), she is Associate Professor of Film and Photography at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her photographic work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Florence, Italy. It is represented in collections including the Fogg Art Museum (Harvard University), the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), the Smith College Art Museum, the Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and the Women In Photography International Archive at Yale University.

Matthews is co-author, with Laura Wexler, of Pregnant Pictures (Routledge, 2000), a cultural history of photographs of pregnant women.

 

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EDUCATION

M.F.A. State University of New York at Buffalo, 1976, Photography and Film.

B.A. magna cum laude, Harvard University, 1973, Visual and Environmental Studies.

COLLECTIONS

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

The Boston Drawing Project, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts.

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.

Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon.

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

Women in Photography International Archive, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Solo and Two-person Exhibitions

Cypress College Photography Gallery, Cypress, CA, Photographic Composites/ Sandra Matthews, January 2008.

Concordia University Art Gallery, Irvine, CA., Homeland Scrolls, November 2007.

Oresman Gallery, Hillyer Hall/Brown Fine Arts Center, Smith College, Northampton, MA, Homeland Scrolls: Photographic Works by Sandra Matthews, November 2005.

Chatham College Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, October/November 2003.

A.P.E. Gallery, Northampton, MA, Shapes and Spaces: Printed Works by Magdalen I. Matthews and Sandra Matthews, November/December 2002.

Los Angeles Photography Center, Los Angeles, CA, June 1991.

Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield, MI, February 1989.

Hampshire College Photography Gallery, Amherst, MA, February 1987.

Ashdown House Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Sandra Matthews, Photographs/Susan Hellewell, Paintings, November 1986.

F:64 Space for Photography, Florence, Italy, November 1984.

Center Gallery, California State University, Fullerton, Color Photographs from the U.S. and China: Sandra Matthews, April 1982.

New School/Parsons Photography Gallery, New York City, Color Constructions: Sandra Matthews, February 1980.

Gallery 219, State University of New York at Buffalo, Photographs by Joan K. Hyman and Sandra Matthews, March 1976.

Niagara County Community College Gallery, Sanborn, NY, Works by Sandra Herz and Sandra Matthews, October 1976.

 

Group Exhibitions

80 Washington Square East Galleries, New York University, New York,  Small Works, February/March 2008. Juror: Richard Witter, OK Harris Works of Art.

Hosmer Art Gallery, Forbes Library, Northampton, MA, Self Reflection: A Juried Exhibition of Self-portraits, October 2007. Juror: Loretta Yarlow, Director, University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts.
           
Hampshire College Main Gallery, Faculty Exhibitions, October 2007, October 2005, October 2004, October 2002,  October 2001, March 1999, October 1995, March 1994.

Liebling Center for Film, Photography and Video, Hampshire College,  Landscape/History/Photography : Works by Suzanne Flynt, Sandra Matthews, and Janet Pritchard,  March 2007.

Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro,  Eighth Annual In-Sight Photography Project Exhibition, October 2006.

Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA, Members’ Exhibition, May 2005. Juror: Alison Devine Nordstrom, Curator, George Eastman House.
           
Crane Studio Building, New York, Emergency Art Exhibition, December 2001

Pivot Gallery, Florence, MA, Art from the Mechanism,  November 2001

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 30th Anniversary Artists and Designers Show, spring 1993.

N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago, IL,  Collage at N.A.M.E,  January 1988.

Smith College Museum of Art,  Northampton, MA,  Photo-Synthesis, 1986.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA,  Baby Pictures, April 1986.

Susan Spiritus Gallery, Newport Beach, CA, 8 x 10, August 1980.

Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies’ National Juried Competition, Perception: Field of View, May 1979.

Center for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Segments of Series, October 1979.

Roanoke College Gallery, Salem, Virginia, East Side-West Side: New York Photography,  November 1979.

CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Brooks/Carey/Jacobs/Matthews/Sherman, August 1975.

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (as Author)

“Courage in the Face of History: Cross-Cultural Portraits” in Masquerade: Contemporary Portrait Photography by Women, ed. Kate Newton and Christine Rolph, Cornerstone Press, UK, 2003.

“In Defense of Civil Rights: The Paradoxical Power of Family Photographs”, Afterimage,  winter 2003.

Pregnant Pictures, a cultural history of photographs of pregnant women co-authored with Laura Wexler,  Routledge, 2000.

Introduction to Life’s Lessons, by Bea Nettles, Inky Press, 1991.

“Looking Up at the Upper Class: The Recent Photographs of Barbara Norfleet”, exposure, winter 1989.

“The Importance of the Landscape Image in China”, catalogue essay for the exhibition China from Within , sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1983.

“Chinese Photography: Notes Toward a Cross-Cultural Analysis of a Western Medium”, Afterimage, January 1982.

“Thinking About Women’s Photographs”, Journal, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, September 1979.

 

TEACHING

Hampshire College, Associate Professor of Film and Photography, 1990-present.
Assistant Professor of Film and Photography, 1982-1989.

Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, Instructor of Photography, History of Photography, and Film, 1979-1982.

International Center of Photography, New York City, Instructor of Photography, 1978.

 

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS

“Photography, Landscape and History”, lecture given at Concordia University, Irvine, CA, November 2007.

Gallery talk (with Shona MacDonald) for the exhibition Impossible Landscapes, University of Massachusetts, February 2007.

“The Residue of History: Works by Sandra Matthews and Eileen Claveloux”, presentation at the Northeast regional conference of the Society for Photographic Education, Boston, December 2006.

“Making Photographic History: Art, Culture and Nation in Chinese Photography” paper presentation at the Thinking Photography (Again) Conference, University of Durham, England, July 2005.

“Pregnant Pictures: Photographing Pregnancy in the 20th Century”, Medicine and Humanities Lecture Series, Yale University Medical School,  November 2003.

“Family Photographs and Fascination”, gallery talk for the exhibition Diane Arbus: Family Albums, Mt. Holyoke College Museum of Art, October 2003.

“American Portraits”, lecture given at the Photography House, Poprad, Slovakia, and the Buryzone Art Center, Bratislava, Slovakia, June 2002.

“History and Photography: Three Asian Projects”, panel organized and moderated for the Northeast regional conference of the Society for Photographic Education, Syracuse, October 2001.

“Picturing Pregnancy in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, lecture given at Lancaster University and London Guildhall University, November 2000.

“Double Takes: A Dialogue on Women’s Photographs”, gallery talk (with Judith Davidov) for the exhibition Defining Eye: Women Photographers of the 20th Century, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, October 1998.

“Pregnant Pictures”, panel presentation at the National Conference of the American Studies Association. Washington D.C., October 1997, and lecture given at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, Mt.Holyoke College, October 1996.

“Contemporary American Photography and Cultural Identity”, lecture given at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Fuzhou University and Xiamen University (China), November 1996.

“Foreign Objects: Understanding Photography Cross-Culturally”, panel organized and moderated for the National Conference of the Society for Photographic Education, New Orleans, 1991.

 

CURATORIAL/EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

Curator, “Visits to the Homeland: Photographs of China”, exhibition traveled by the Visual Studies Workshop Traveling Exhibition Program, 1991-1999.

Co-Editor (with Gillian Brown), Obscura, journal of the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, 1980-1982.

Curatorial Intern, Light Gallery, New York City, summer 1978.

Assistant to the Curator of Photography, Harvard University, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 1972-1974.