Diane Tuft

Diane Tuft (born 1947) is an American photographer focusing on nature and landscape photography, documenting the effects of the environment on the Earth's landscape. She is based in New York City.

Early life and education Tuft was born and raised in East Hartford, Connecticut. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in mathematics. After graduating, she moved to New York City to work as an actuarial assistant. She later held jobs with the Burroughs Corporation and Computer Design Corporation. Tuft married in 1971 and while raising a family studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1981 to 1989. She began photographing the Arctic landscape in 2001, She often documents icy landscapes through aerial photography She typically zooms in to the landscape to the point of abstraction, framing shots without a sense of scale. In 2008, Tuft published her first monograph, Unseen: Beyond the Visible Spectrum, a retrospective of her photographs between the years 1998 and 2007, featuring the American West, Nepal, North Africa, Iceland and Greenland. The foreword was written by William Fox, director of the Center for Art and Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.

In 2006, Tuft created a room-size installation, Internal Reflection, which combined sculpture, light, sound and photography. It was exhibited at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York City and at Art LA in Santa Monica, California. Her 2008 series Salt Lake Reconsidered, exhibited at Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art in New York City and the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, featured aerial photographs of the Great Salt Lake. Tuft's photographic series Icelandic Glaciers in 2001 and Icelandic Sagas in 2008 document the change of Iceland's glaciers due to climate change.

Gondwana (2012–14) Tuft received a 2012 National Science Foundation grant to explore the visual effects of ozone depletion on Antarctica's landscape. In October 2012, she traveled to Antarctica, living at McMurdo Station for six weeks. The resulting images collected in her 2014 book Gondwana: Images of an Ancient Land focused on the effects that the harsh environment of Antarctica had on shaping its landscape. These images include the meromictic lakes in the dry valleys of Antarctica, where millions of years of gasses have been trapped in the ice, volcanic gas formations, glacial striations that record millions of years of snow accumulation, and ventifacts formed by ongoing intense winds.

The Arctic Melt (2015–present) During the summers of 2015 and 2016, Tuft explored the Arctic to document the severe melt that was occurring throughout the region. Her journey included the mountain glaciers and surrounding waters of Svalbard, Norway, the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean including the North Pole, and the icebergs and ice sheet of Greenland. Tuft's series, The Arctic Melt: Images of a Disappearing Landscape, has resulted in several exhibitions worldwide, as well as a three-minute film and book. Climate scientist Joe Romm wrote the book's introduction.

Collections Tuft has work included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, International Center of Photography in Manhattan, and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York. Unseen Arctic, 2008–2009, Pulse, New York, NY, 2010 Aftermath, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY, 2012 The Arctic: Photographs from Greenland and Iceland 2001-2008, Southampton Center, Southampton, NY, 2013 Gondwana: Images of an Ancient Land, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY, 2014 Antarctic Photography: Selections from Gondwana, Images of an Ancient Land, Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Greenwich, CT, 2014-15 East to West, Southampton Art Center, Southampton, NY, 2015 The Arctic Melt, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY, 2017; Harpa, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2017; National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 2017-18