(b. 1955, Philadelphia, USA)
Dona Schwartz is a photographer whose work explores everyday life and culture. She earned her PhD at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in visual communication and ethnographic research. In addition to her work as a photographic artist, she is a scholar and an educator. Among her many academic publications are two photographic ethnographies, “Waucoma Twilight: Generations of the Farm” (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) and “Contesting the Super Bowl” (Routledge, 1997). Her photographic monograph, In the Kitchen, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2009, followed by On the Nest in 2015. Her award-winning photographs are internationally exhibited and published, and her work is included in the collections of the US Library of Congress, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas-Austin, the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, and the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Born in Philadelphia, PA, Schwartz lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota from 1982-2014. She currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Schwartz is Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Calgary. She serves as President and Board Chair of Alberta’s annual photography festival, Exposure.
