This section honors Ruth Orkin’s Centennial year. She was born September 3, 1921! There continue to be solo exhibitions, group shows and a new book to celebrate her tremendous contributions to the worlds of photography and film!
Check out this reel of Ruth’s Retrospective at Museo Civic de Bassano, up until Mary 22, 2022, by clicking this link:
Mary Engel Presenting a Retrospective Talk on the Engel/Orkin Archive
The National Arts Club (March 28, 2022)
Current Exhibitions
Museo Civico di Bassano, Bassano del Grappo, Italy: Ruth Orkin: Anthology (December 18, 2021 – May 22, 2022).
Ruth Orkin: Anthology, a retrospective of Orkin’s seminal photography and film spanning decades, is on view at Museo Civico di Bassano through May 22, 2022.
Past Exhibitions
FOTOGRAFISKA, NY: Ruth Orkin – Expressions of Life (September 3 – December 5, 2021)
FOTOGRAFISKA – Wall text for RUTH ORKIN – EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE
“When I was a little girl, my mother Ruth was larger than life. She told me to call her Ruth at a young age, so she could hear me in a crowd. She had a great personality, with lots of charisma, and people always said she had chutzpah. She was warm, but she could be tough and strong too. In my eyes, she had it all.”
—Mary Engel
Ruth Orkin (1921-1985) ventured into photography having received her first camera at the age of ten. As a middle school student she successfully skipped chemistry class in favor of mastering the dark room, and fell in love with the alchemy of photography.
A soundscape emanates from Orkin’s work, rising from the print to reach our inner ear. The sounds of children at play, the calm moments in a bustling train station, the turning of a bike wheel, a crowd in protest, the kisses exchanged by couples in dark bars and public benches. Orkin’s photographs are playful and jovial, giving the impression of lightheartedness, but her approach to her subjects affirm the depth of her artistic practice. She sought to capture life at its fullest, exploring the melody and motion of human breath and the songs that are born from it. Gestures and human expressions are ever present in her photographs. Her work reveals the extraordinary opera of seemingly ordinary life. Read more here.