Ann Rosen (b. 1948)

For more than two decades, Ann Rosen has been photographing families and the intermingling of ethnic and racial groups in Brooklyn, NY. Her project chronicles their diversity as exhibited through intermarriage, biracial adoption and same-sex marriages. Rosen is inspired by how gesture reveals relationship between family members, which she emphasizes by creating double exposures. After interviewing these subjects, Rosen writes their stories in detail, onto the frames. Her next series, In the Presence of Women, started in 2012, portrays women living in homeless shelters. Both series highlight their subjects’ resilience.

Ann Rosen graduated from SUNY at Buffalo with a B.F.A. and earned her M.F.A. at the Visual Studies Workshop, where she studied printmaking, photography and alternative photographic processes with Nathan Lyons, Joan Lyons and John Wood. Her influences were the emotional portraits of Diane Arbus, stark black and white portraits by Irving Penn, and Helen Levitt’s street shots portraying human pathos and joy. Rosen’s residencies include Artpark in Lewiston, New York and grants include support from the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Puffin Foundation. Her photographs and books are represented in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art Library, International Center of Photography, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and Burchfield Penney Art Center. —NW