Nancy Rexroth

Nancy Rexroth (born 1946) is an American photographer noted for her pioneer work utilizing the Diana camera. In 1977, she published Iowa – the first printed monograph of work completed with a plastic camera. She then went on to receive her MFA in Photography at Ohio University (1969-1971).

In 1969, during her graduate studies, Ohio University professor, Arnold Gassan, introduced Rexroth to the Diana camera. This toy camera used 120 (medium format) film and was known for the soft focus and impressionistic, ‘dreamlike’ images it produced as a result of its plastic lens. Although some photographers saw the effects of the Diana camera as hindrances, Rexroth embraced and explored its defects. As a result of this internship came what would be Rexroth's second publication, The Platinotype 1977 (1976), a pamphlet on modern platinum printing.

In 1973, she moved back to Ohio to teach at Antioch College and Wright State University, and to work on a photographic series that became her first published book, Iowa, funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Grant.

Iowa Rexroth's most notable work, Iowa, is a series of dream-like and poetic images. Speaking to the appearance of Rexroth’s work, Mary Abbe of the Minneapolis Tribune Paper states, "The show's most striking image, "A Woman's Bed" Logon Ohio 1970, is also one of its simplest. "A Woman's Bed" is a shadowy picture of a dark headboard half-buried by a drift of stark, white, primordially pure bedding. The headboard's design and the way the bed edges into a corner suggests the narrow confines of the lives it sheltered […] a mysterious womb of light wrapped in darkness."

The Iowa series subconsciously expresses Rexroth's childhood memories of visiting family in Iowa.

Publications Aperture. Vol. 19, No. 1 , the Snapshot (1974), pp. 54–63 (contributor). Iowa. Rochester, NY: Violet Press, 1976. With an introduction by Mark L Power. The Platinotype 1977. Rochester, NY: Violet Press, 1976.

Solo exhibitions

1972: Putnam Street Gallery, Athens, OH Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2007; Lawrence Markey Gallery, San Antonio, TX, 2013;

Collections Rexroth's work is held in the following permanent public collections: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH