Monsen Photography Lecture: Deborah Willis

The Henry is delighted to welcome Deborah Willis as a Monsen Photography Lecture speaker. This lecture series brings key makers and thinkers in photographic practice to the Henry. Named after Drs. Elaine and Joseph R. Monsen, the series is designed to further knowledge about and appreciation for the art of photography.

In “Staying Engaged: Social Protest, Migrations, and Responses in Art,” Willis will draw upon her prolific career as a photographer and a scholar of the history of photography as she addresses how we stay engaged in contemporary social protest and justice movements through the medium of photography. The presentation will be followed by a conversation with Sylvia Wolf, John S. Behnke Director of the Henry.

Deborah Willis, PhD, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, among others. Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits at the International Center of Photography, Out of Fashion Photography: Framing Beauty at the Henry Art Gallery, and Reframing Beauty: Intimate Moments at Indiana University.