Hannah Altman
American photographer (born 1995)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hannah Altman (born May 1, 1995) is an American photographer from New Jersey.[1][2] Her artwork explores lineage, memory, ritual, and storytelling. She is known for her use of natural light and incorporating aspects of Jewish culture into her work.[3][4]
Point Park University (BFA)
Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA)
Hannah Altman | |
|---|---|
Altman in 2022 | |
| Born | May 1, 1995 |
| Education | Hunterdon Central Regional High School Point Park University (BFA) Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA) |
| Occupation | Photographer |
Life
A graduate of Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Altman grew up in the Ringoes section of East Amwell Township, New Jersey, United States.[5] She is Jewish of Ashkenazi descent.[3][6] She started photographing as a child in response to her severe nearsightedness.[7] She graduated from with a BFA degree in photography from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2017 and an MFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, in 2020.[7] As of 2023, she is based in Boston, Massachusetts.[8]
Career
Since 2015, Altman has made the project Indoor Voices, a series of portraits made with her mother.[9][10]
In 2015, when Altman was a 19-year-old student at Point Park University, she posted the photo series And Everything Nice to her Tumblr page featuring bodily fluids replaced with glitter as a critique of female beauty standards.[11] The project garnered significant media attention, with features including Buzzfeed,[11] Huffington Post,[12] Vanity Fair,[12] and Cosmopolitan.[13][14] She had her first solo show in 2016 at The Lantern Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which explored themes of feminism and community.[15]
In 2018, as an MFA student at Virginia Commonwealth University, she began working on Kavana, a photography project that explores Jewish memory, narrative heirlooms, and image making.[16] Kris Graves Projects published a photobook of this work in 2020,[17] which has been collected by several libraries, including the MoMa, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Harvard University.[18][19][20] Curator Francesca Cesari described her work in 2022 as:
"The powerful aesthetic and the profound, symbolic message her works conveys are a fresh, unexpected narrative that immediately leads to a tale of tradition and contemporary. Her poetic language tells us about the Yiddish diaspora through staged portraits, rituals and symbols that re-elaborate old experiences, deeply rooted in the past yet extremely present. There is a kind of silence that flutters through the pictures, we tend to feel the same respect we have in front of a sacred image and at the same time we recognize the tangible sensuality of bodies, with a focus on the female figures. The wonderful use of light and the simple but effective scenes reveal how the experience of exile contain both grief and resilience, a strong identity with a special code that is still relevant today."[21]
Themes of Jewish ritual and storytelling were further demonstrated with solo exhibitions at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon in 2020,[22] Filter Photo Chicago, IL in 2021,[23] and Gallery 263 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2022.[24] In 2023, she became the inaugural Blanksteen Artist in Residence at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.[25] She was also named an Aperture Portfolio Prize finalist in 2023.[26] In March 2025, she released her second photography book We Will Return to You, published by Saint Lucy Books.[27] The book explores motifs within Jewish folklore, in particular diasporic Yiddish literature, and how those themes can be translated into photographs.[28] The book has been collected by institutions including the Getty Library, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Princeton University Library.[29][30][31] Cultured Magazine included Altman on their Young Photographer's List in 2025.[32]
Solo exhibitions
- 2016: Intimate Threat, with Josh Escoto. Curated by Krista Wright. Trust Arts Education Center. Pittsburgh, PA.
- 2016: Luminous / Weightless. Lantern Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA.[15]
- 2017: Construct of Viewpoint. Junior High Gallery. Los Angeles, CA.
- 2017: Humanism. The Temple Judea Museum. Elkins Park, PA.
- 2018: Construct of Viewpoint. Union Hall Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA.[33]
- 2020: Kavana. Blue Sky Gallery. Portland, OR.[22]
- 2021: A Permanent Home in the Mouth of the Sun. AAP Exhibition Space. Pittsburgh, PA.[34]
- 2021: A Permanent Home in the Mouth of the Sun. Filter Space. Chicago, IL.[23]
- 2022: With Rifts and Collapses. Gallery 263. Cambridge, MA.[24]
- 2023: We Will Return to You. Abakus Projects. Boston, MA.[35]
- 2025: As It Were, Suspended in Midair, Kniznick Gallery. Brandeis University. Waltham, MA.[36]
- 2025: Hannah Altman | Elinor Carucci, with Elinor Carucci. Koffler Arts. Toronto, ON.[37]
- 2025: We Will Return to You. Candela Gallery. Richmond, VA.[38]