Faculty
Holly Lynton (American, b. 1972) is an American photographer living in rural Massachusetts. Her photographs focus on understanding rural communities in the United States through their agricultural history, current industry, and ritual.
Her images underscore the importance of having unmediated experiences with the natural world. Currently, she is examining the intersection of faith, history, labor, and the environment.
Lynton received a BA in psychology from Yale University in 1994 and an MFA in Photography from Bard College in 2000. Lynton’s photographs have been exhibited internationally; recent exhibitions include On the Basis of Art, 150 Years of Women at Yale (2021), at the Yale University Art Gallery, and a solo exhibition in collaboration with Maurice Wallace: Meeting Tonight: Two South Carolina African American Camp Meetings at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University (2022).
Her first book Bare Handed was published in 2022 by L’Artiere Edizioni. Her book and photographs are held in several public collections such as the Yale University Art Gallery, MoMA Library Collection, the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Library Collection, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, The Fidelity Collection, Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, the Ingalls Library and Museum Archives, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. Lynton has received numerous awards and grants including an Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, the 2021 Critical Mass Top 50, and the Syngenta Photography Award.
She has been nominated for the Maud Morgan Prize at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, a St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and this is her third nomination for a Prix Pictet. Yale University awarded her a postdoctoral research fellowship in 2019 at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition for her series Meeting Tonight, an exploration of Methodist camp meetings in South Carolina.
Her work has been featured in and she has worked on consignment for publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Miami Herald, Southern Cultures, and Harvard Design Magazine, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Lynton has been a guest lecturer and led workshops at numerous institutions internationally including the University of Connecticut, the University of South Carolina, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies in Heidelberg, Germany.
Work by Holly Lynton: