Joanne Leonard

Joanne Leonard is an American photographer, photo collage artist, and feminist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work has been included in major art history textbooks and has been shown internationally in galleries and museums.

Early life Joanne Leonard was born in Los Angeles in 1940 to P. Alfred Leonard, originally of Mannheim, Germany, and Marjorie Rosenfeld Leonard. She has a twin sister, Eleanor (Rubin), who is also an artist, and a younger sister, Barbara (Handelman). She received a B.A. in Social Science from the University of California in 1962.

Career Leonard is known for her photographs and photo collages depicting private moments and personal struggles from women's lives once considered either taboo or unimportant. Her photograph, Julia and the Window of Vulnerability was chosen to illustrate the opening of the chapter, "The Modern World" in the 1991 edition of Gardner's Art Through the Ages.

She was an official photographer for the 1972 Winter Olympics.

She taught art and interdisciplinary courses at the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design and now holds the title of Diane M. Kirkpatrick and Griselda Pollock Distinguished University Professor Emerita.

Leonard's influence on the field of photography has been for creating images of objects, places, and people from women’s realms and private spaces—from a woman’s own perspective. A large body of her work is in photo collage, made with the goal of juxtaposing the intimate with social questions or political issues that are circulating today in the world. She is also known for distinguished photo collage work as well.

Collections Leonard's work is held by major collections, including:

International Center of Photography in New York City Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University in Stanford, California Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, which holds 62 of her photographs, all of which are digitized and available on their website National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) University of Michigan Museum of Art Victoria & Albert Museum Whitney Museum of American Art

Quotations

I built a darkroom when I could have fixed up a kitchen.

My camera has always sought the beauty and light in a moment.

Feminism is a tool for looking at what's missing.

The making of the work, as miserable as I was (and it was a miserable time for me), was also a time of great excitement because I was doing something I had actually never seen before. I was finding ways to represent something I had no idea how to do. West Oakland – 1963-72 Family and Friends – 1962 - present High School Drum Corps - 1966 Journal of a Miscarriage - 1973. A series of 30 prints featuring photo-collages, which depict a miscarriage, fertility and reproductive issues - in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum - UK Julia (daughter) with concentration - 1975-95 and sporadically, continuing to present Interiors – 1977-early 1980s. Home interiors photographed in conjunction with Human Arts and Technology (HAT) – a project funded by National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Photography Surveys grant. Ultimately, the series incorporated images made earlier in the 1960s in West Oakland. Not Losing Her Memory (photographs and collages focusing on women in Leonard's family and her mother’s memory loss – 1980s and 1990s Roots and Wings - 1980s and 1990s Newspaper Diary Series – 2006 - present

Exhibitions

Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency at Museum of Contemporary Photography, 19 Jan – 23 May 2021 National Gallery of Art: The ’70s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography, 6 Oct 2024 – 6 Apr 2025, and related feature 12 Documentary Photographers Who Changed the Way We See the World HackelBury: Joanne Leonard: Vintage Photographs and Early Collages, 29 May - 8 Jul 2025