Deborah Willis (artist)

Deborah Willis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth and Thomas Willis on February 5, 1948. Willis is the mother of conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas. Her father was a photographer as well, and her close familial ties are apparent in works such as Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II (1992), and Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas (2009).^[1]

Willis's degrees include a B.F.A. in photography from Philadelphia College of Art in 1975; an M.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute in 1979; an M.A. in art history from City College of New York in 1986;^[5] and a Ph.D. from the Cultural Studies Program of George Mason University in 2001.^[6][1]

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During her early career, Deborah Willis sought to find and recognize photography created by African Americans.^[7] She also aims to document and portray the beauty of the female body through her works.^[8] With the help of Richard Newman from Garland Publishing, she was able to create her first book Black Photographers, 1840-1940: an Illustrated Bio-bibliography (1985), which included more than three hundred photographers in the book. As she described in an interview,^[9] many of the photographers were ready to throw out their work due to lack of recognition before the book. Continuing with her goal of recognizing black photographers, Deborah Willis came out with a second installment called “An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography of Black Photographers, 1940-1988” (1989) which also included contemporary photographers, as she previously intended to in the first installment.^[10]

Willis was the curator of photographs and the prints/exhibition coordinator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library between 1980 and 1992, after which she became exhibitions curator at the Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution for eight years.^[1][6] Between 2000 and 2001,she was Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[11] She then joined the faculty of New York University as a professor of photography and imaging in the Tisch School of Arts, eventually become the chair of that department.^[1] Interested in "historic and cultural documentation and preservation", she has published "some twenty books on African-American photographers and on the representation of blacks in photographic imagery."^[12] Among them are Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present (2002), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), and Black: A Celebration of a Culture (2014). Also known as "Deb Willis,"^[13] she survived a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2001.^[14] She was the curator of photographs and the prints/exhibition coordinator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library between 1980 and 1992.

Willis co-produced the 2014 documentary film Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, which is based on her book Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present.^[15] In 2008, she organized the exhibition Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits for the National Museum of African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution.

Willis's work was included in the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.^[16]

Willis served on the jury that chose the winners of the Rome Prize for the 2023–24 cycle, co-chaired by Naomi Beckwith and Fred Wilson.^[17]

Willis has received numerous awards and honors, including:

• 1995: Infinity Award for Writing, International Center of Photography.^[18]
• 2000: MacArthur Fellow^[2]
• 2003: Honorary doctorate, Maryland Institute College of Art^[14]
• 2005: Fletcher Fellow, Fletcher Foundation^[19]
• 2005: Guggenheim Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation^[20]
• 2013–2014: Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University^[21]
• 2020: Award for Outstanding Service to Photography and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
• 2023: Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art ^[22]
• 2023: Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Yale University^[23]

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As an artist and photographer, Willis was represented by Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami^[24] and Charles Guice Contemporary in Berkeley, California.^[25] Her exhibitions have included:

• Progeny, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, 2008.^[26] The exhibition traveled as "Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas" in 2009 to New York and to Sacramento, California.^[27]
• Regarding Beauty, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2003, containing "photographs and autobiographical quilts".^[28]
• Deborah Willis: Tied to Memory, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, 2000.^[29]
• Deborah Willis, Hughley Gallery & Objects, Atlanta, 1992, involving "small narrative quilts built around historical photographs, documents and family snapshots".^[30]

Willis is also a quilter, also incorporating photographic images into her pieces. Daddy's Ties: The Tie Quilt II from 1992 (27 x 34"), for example, is a fabric collage with added button, tie clips, and pins forming "a supple, irregularly shaped memorial."^[12] The work references multiple generations and genders, as it elicits memories of fathers teaching their sons, boys maturing into adult clothes and rituals, and women adjusting their husbands' knots. At the same time, however, the artist's cutting and reconfiguration of the ties raises the possibility that such nostalgic references might be outmoded or rejected. This multivalent collage "also memorializes black soldiers who fought in World War II", since Willis includes photos of soldiers on linen fabric collaged onto the tie fabric.^[12] Willis's focus on the African-American experience is evident in Tribute to the Hottentot Venus: Bustle (1995), a fabric and photo linen collage (23 x 28") in a triptych format. Small images of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called "Hottentot Venus", appear in the left and right sections together with pieced fabric silhouettes of her body. The central image in the triptych is of a late 19th-century dress with prominent bustle, its shape emphasizing the buttocks. Willis explains that her use of quilting as a technique "reminds us who we are and who and what our ancestors have been to us in the larger society".^[12]

Her quilts have been included in the following exhibits and catalogs:

• Story Quilts: Photography and Beyond, Black Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1999, Curated by photographer and installation artist Pat Ward Williams, the exhibition showcased the works of three African-American artists—Willis, Kyra E. Hicks and Dorothy Taylor.^[31]
• Tribute to the Hottentot Venus quilt, 1992.^[32][33]

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Exhibitions that Willis has curated include:

• Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985, curated with Philip Brookman, at the National Gallery of Art, September 21, 2025–January 11, 2026, the J. Paul Getty Museum, February 24–June 14, 2026 and Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, July 25–November 8, 2026; catalog edited by Willis and Brookman (ISBN 978-0-300-28350-1)
• Posing Beauty in African American Culture, which opened Fall 2009 at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and went on to tour worldwide.
• Reflections in Black, Arts and Industries Building, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2000, on African-American photography.^[34] The exhibition in whole or in part traveled widely in the U.S. between 2000 and 2003.^[35][36]
  • Reflections in Black: A Reframing, on display September–October 2025 at New York University's Cooper Square Gallery, ahead of a new edition of Reflections in Black being released in November.^[37]
• Constructed Images: New Photography, which traveled between 1989 and 1992.^{[6][38][39][40]}

• Willis, Deborah, Leigh Raiford, and Sarah Lewis, editors (2025). Coreen Simpson: A Monograph. New York: Aperture. ISBN 978-1-597-11585-8
• Willis, Deborah (2021). The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-47980-900-4.
• Willis, Deborah; Krauthamer, Barbara (2012). Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-43990-985-0.
• Willis, Deborah; Hank Willis Thomas; Kalia Brooks (2009). Progeny: Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas. New York: Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. ISBN 978-1-884919-23-7.
• Willis, Deborah (2009). Posing Beauty: African American images from the 1890s to the present. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06696-8.
• Willis, Deborah; Emily Bernard (2009). Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393077476.
• Willis, Deborah; Kevin Merida (2008). Obama: the historic campaign in photographs. New York: Amistad. ISBN 978-0-06-173309-3.
• Willis, Deborah (2007). Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American portraits. Washington, DC: National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 978-1-58834-242-3.
• Wallis, Brian; Deborah Willis (2005). African American Vernacular Photography: selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection. New York: International Center of Photography. ISBN 3-86521-225-5.
• Willis, Deborah (2005). Family History Memory: recording African American life. New York: Hylas. ISBN 1-59258-086-6.
• Willis, Deborah; Sean Moore; Karen Prince (2004). Black: a celebration of a culture. Irvington, NY: Hylas. ISBN 1-59258-051-3.
• Lewis, David L; Deborah Willis (2003). A Small Nation of People: W.E.B. Du Bois and African-American portraits of progress. New York: Amistad. ISBN 0-06-052342-5.
• Willis, Deborah; Carla Williams (2002). The Black Female Body: a photographic history. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-928-9.
• Crouch, Stanley; Deborah Willis (2002). One Shot Harris: the photographs of Charles "Teenie" Harris. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3272-5.
• Willis, Deborah (2000). Reflections in Black: a history of Black photographers, 1840 to the present. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04880-2.
• Cottman, Michael H; Deborah Willis; Linda Tarrant-Reid (1996). The Family of Black America. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88822-X.
• Willis, Deborah; Jane Lusaka (1996). Visual Journal: Harlem and D.C. in the thirties and forties. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-691-3.
• Cottman, Michael H; Deborah Willis (1995). Million Man March. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88763-0.
• Willis, Deborah; Jane Lusaka (1994). Imagining Families: images and voices. Washington, DC: National African American Museum, a Smithsonian Institution Project. ISBN 1-885892-00-4.
• Willis, Deborah (1994). Picturing Us: African American identity in photography. New York: New Press. ISBN 1-56584-107-7.
• Driskell, David C; David L Lewis; Deborah Willis (1994). Harlem Renaissance: art of Black America. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, Abradale Press. ISBN 0-8109-8128-9.
• Willis, Deborah (1993). J.P. Ball, daguerrean and studio photographer. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8153-0716-0.
• Willis-Braithwaite, Deborah; Rodger C Birt (1993). VanDerZee, photographer, 1886–1983. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3923-1.
• Willis, Deborah (1992). Early Black Photographers, 1840-1940: 23 postcards. New York: New Press. ISBN 1-56584-007-0.
• Willis, Deborah; Lorna Simpson (1992). Lorna Simpson. San Francisco: Friends of Photography. ISBN 0-933286-60-0.
• Willis, Deborah; Howard Dodson (1989). Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 years of social protest. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum of Art. ISBN 0-913697-09-5.
• Willis-Thomas, Deborah (1989). An Illustrated Bio-bibliography of Black Photographers, 1940–1988. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-8389-X.
• Driskell, David C; David L Lewis; Deborah Willis Ryan (1987). Harlem Renaissance: art of Black America. New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1099-3.
• Willis-Thomas, Deborah (1985). Black Photographers, 1840–1940: an illustrated bio-bibliography. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-9147-7.