The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was awarded an additional grant by The Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation in support of an effort with the Center for Creative Photography (University of Arizona, Tucson) to share the collaborative exhibition Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna with audiences in the southwestern U.S. The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of the photography of illustrious Vassar alumna Rosalie (“Rollie”) McKenna, Class of 1940.

Last year, the Foundation supported the initial presentation of the exhibition at the Loeb. Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna situated the photographer’s oeuvre within the broader histories of twentieth-century photography, American art, and photography made by women. The exhibition included pieces from Vassar’s collections, as well as loans of photographs, contact sheets, magazine spreads, and other archival material from the Center for Creative Photography and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Rosalie “Rollie” McKenna was a 1940 graduate of Vassar who retained close ties to her alma mater throughout her lifetime. Despite her prolific career, McKenna’s work has thus far been under-recognized in histories of twentieth-century art and photography. Born in Houston and raised in Mississippi, McKenna is best known for black-and-white architectural photographs and portraits, especially photographs of mid-century American and British writers. In many ways, photography allowed McKenna to forge an unusual path for a woman in mid-twentieth-century America toward both personal and artistic independence. By challenging received conventions of studio portraiture, and expectations of photography in general, she embraced her medium as suited to reflect the true complexity of human experience—including her own. McKenna was unconfined to a single genre or way of working, and her body of work bespeaks a singular approach to modern photography.

With the Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation’s renewed support, this successful exhibition will bring further attention to the work of a prolific, yet underrecognized, photographer and to encourage visitors and readers to critically reconsider McKenna’s legacy. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona is ranked among the world’s finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. Traveling Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna will expand opportunities for American audiences to learn about an exceptional artist and her contributions to American art. And as the largest repository of archival materials documenting McKenna’s work over a forty-year career as a photographer, the Center for Creative Photography is uniquely positioned to boost her public profile.