SCALA ARTS & HERITAGE PUBLISHERS LTD Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna

Only retrospective on the photography of Rollie McKenna in print Accompanies a major exhibition at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College February 17 – June 2, 2024 Includes iconic portraits of artists and writers, including W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Alexander Calder, Truman Capote, T. S. Eliot, Laura Gilpin, Henry Moore, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, and Eudora Welty Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna is the first career survey of prolific American photographer Rosalie (Rollie) Thorne McKenna (1918–2003). After graduating from Vassar College in 1940, McKenna worked independently as a sought-after architectural and portrait photographer, making unique yet under-recognised contributions to American modernism and documentary photography. McKenna’s work was published in numerous books and magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Fortune. The Museum of Modern Art’s 1955 landmark exhibition Latin American Modernism Since 1945 featured her architectural photographs. She made iconic portraits of artists and writers, including W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Alexander Calder, Truman Capote, T. S. Eliot, Laura Gilpin, Henry Moore, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, and Eudora Welty. McKenna’s story as a queer woman would be lost if not for her dedication to preserving her own legacy. She embraced photography to explore the complexities of human experience ― including her own.