Diana Michener (b. 1940, Boston) received a BA in Art History from New York’s Barnard College in 1963, and also studied at Smith College and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Michener attended a workshop with Ansel Adams and studied with Lisette Model in 1974 at the New School for Social Research, New York. For the past three decades Michener’s series have featured lushly ethereal and haunting imagery. Her subjects have included cow heads (“Heads,” 1985-86), fetuses in glass jars (“Foetus,” 1987-88), corpses (“Corpus,” 1993-94), self-portraits (“Morning After Morning,” 1994, and “Solitaire,” 1997), male and female bodies (“The Wrestlers” 2000-01) and conflagrations consuming houses and statuettes (“Dogs, Fires, Me,” 2004-05). Her photographic series use symbolic elements and sequences to create timeless narratives, exploring complex themes such as mortality, identity, conflict, and serenity. Michener's images encourage one's own process of introspection, serving as contemplative markers that blur the distinction between what is eternal and ephemeral, what is abstract and real. Michener's photography has been exhibited at venues in the United States and abroad, and her work has been the subject of solo shows since 1981. Her one-person exhibitions include those mounted by the Yale University School of Architecture, New Haven (1996), the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg (2000), and the Gallery of Photography, Dublin (2001). In 2001, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, organized the retrospective "Silence Me.” Her work was recently featured in a group exhibition at the Festival Transphotographiques in Lille (2004). In the early ‘80’s, Michener wrote, directed, and photographed the film Cecilia, which was subsequently screened at the New York and Baltimore Film Festivals. She has worked as a special photographer on a number of films, including Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980), My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle, 1981), and The Designated Mourner (David Hare, 1997). Michener’s work belongs to numerous collections, including the Denver Art Museum; the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Princeton University Art Museum; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Michener’s monographs include Silence Me (2001) and Dogs, Fires, Me (2005). Michener lives and works in New York City, Paris, and Walla Walla, Wash. Go back to top               Printable PDF version