Debora Hunter
Associate Professor of Photography
Debora Hunter was born in Chicago in 1950 and grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. She attended Northwestern University receiving a B.A. in English Literature with departmental honors and a minor in Women’s Studies in 1972. While at Northwestern she became interested in photography when studying visual sociology with Howard S. Becker. She received a M.F.A. in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976, working with Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and the visiting faculty of Minor White and Lisette Model. Since 1976 she has been on the faculty at Meadows School of Art, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
Her photographic work include documentary projects made in Newfoundland and Labrador, “Waiting: Portraits of the Terminally Ill,” “Raw Material: Portraits of Babies” and “Family Landscapes.” In 2002 she completed a permanent public art installation of eight art panels for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s light rail station at Skillman and LBJ Freeway. The working title for her current project is “Land Marks: Photographs from Taos, New Mexico.
Hunter will exhibit her work at the New Mexico History Museum in 2011. She is represented by James Kelly Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Fe.
Selected solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Art Institute of Chicago (2 person show), and International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House. Selected group exhibitions include the Amon Carter Museum, Corcoran Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, Witkin Gallery (NYC), Light Factory, Dallas Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Art, Dallas Center for Contemporary Art, McKinney Avenue Contemporary (Dallas), Lawndale Annex (Houston, TX), Herbert S. Johnson Museum (Cornell University), Fort Worth Art Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, Bravin Post Lee Gallery (NYC), Center for the Arts (Boulder, CO), Alternative Museum (NYC), Creative Photography Laboratory (MIT, Cambridge, MA), Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibitions, Amarillo Art Center. Her work is in the permanent collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Amon Carter Museum, Yale University Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Wesleyan University Art Museum, Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum, Creative Photography Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She has a daughter Temple Shipley studying art history in Chicago and a son Theo Shipley who rows on the Highland Park/Bishop Lynch Crew Team. Hunter enjoys cycling at White Rock Lake, talking with students and teaching in the SMU-in-Taos summer program.
Education
M.F.A., Rhode Island School of Design
B.A., Northwestern University
Teaching
Hunter teaches The Basics of Photography lecture class (ASPH 1300), Black and White Photography (ASPH 2300), Color Photography (ASPH 2302), Digital Tools (ASPH 2304), Special Topics in Photography such as Portraiture, Documentary, Portfolio Development (ASPH 4300, 4301, 5300, 5301), Junior Tutorial in Photography (ASPH 4315), Photography in Taos (ASPH 2306, 3306, 4306, 5306) and Graduate Hours.
She is the Undergraduate Advisor for B.A., B.F.A., B.F.A./M.I.T. Art Majors, Art Minors and Photography Minors.
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