Geraldine Sharpe

Geraldine Sharpe
Born1929
Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedDecember 29, 1968(1968-00-00) (aged 38–39)
West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Other namesGerry Sharpe
Alma materSan Francisco Art Institute
OccupationPhotographer
Years active1950s–1968

Geraldine Sharpe (1929–1968), also known as Gerry Sharpe, was an American photographer.[1] She had worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams. Sharpe's two major bodies of work include photographs of landscapes, and of Ghana (from 1962).[2]

Biography

Geraldine Sharpe was born in 1929 in Trenton, New Jersey.[3] She attended the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute), where she graduated in 1956.[3][2] She studied under Pirkle Jones and Bill Quandt.[4] While in school, her film camera was a Zeiss Ikon 120.[4]

After graduation she worked as a photo assistant for Ansel Adams between 1957 until 1962.[2] Many of her landscape photos were taken at the same locations as Adams, however her work had more dark tonal qualities and appeared "tragic" in subject and composition.[2]

In 1962, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for photography, which was used to work in Ghana.[2] In 1967, she helped co-found the Friends of Photography in Carmel, California.[3] At the time of her death in 1968 she was the director of photography at the Francis du Pont Winterhur Museum (now Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library) in Delaware.[3]

She died on December 29, 1968, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, after a short illness at the age of 39.[3] Her work is part of the museum collection at the Monterey Museum of Art.[5]

References

  1. ^ Garner, Gretchen (1987). Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land. Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-295-96534-5.
  2. ^ a b c d e Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (2013-12-19). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 1670. ISBN 978-1-135-63889-4.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Obituary for Geraldine Sharpe". The San Francisco Examiner. 1968-12-31. p. 28. Retrieved 2022-12-18.
  4. ^ a b "Hands Seen as Symbols". The San Francisco Examiner. 1955-01-16. p. 62. Retrieved 2022-12-18.
  5. ^ "Geraldine Sharpe". Monterey Museum of Art. Retrieved 2022-12-18.

Further reading