Naomi Rosenblum Biography
Photograph by Walter Rosenblum
Dr. Naomi Rosenblum, eminent photographic historian and author has been active in education for some 30 years. She is author of A WORLD HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY and A HISTORY OF WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS, both published by Abbeville Press. A WORLD HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY was a finalist for the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Award. She has written on Adolphe Braun, Lewis Hine, Paul Strand and others for numerous monographs, books and periodicals. Naomi and Walter Rosenblum were the recipients of the International Center of Photography's Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Infinity Awards, May 4, 1998.
In 1977 she and her husband, noted photographer and teacher Walter Rosenblum, were co-curators with Barbara Millstein of “America and Lewis Hine, a retrospective of the work of Lewis Hine at the Brooklyn Museum, New York. In 1980 they were invited by the People’s Republic of China to install this exhibition in Beijing, the first official loan from an American museum to China.
In 1997 Rosenblum was co-curator with Barbara Tannenbaum (then chief curator of the Akron Art Museum) of A HISTORY OF WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS, a traveling exhibition based on her book. The exhibition opened at the New York Public Library, Oct. 1996, and traveled to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Wash. D.C.; the Santa Barbara Art Museum and the Akron Art Museum.
In 1997 Rosenblum was a co-curator with Susan Fillin-Yeh, Director, Reed College Art Gallery of DOCUMENTING A MYTH: THE SOUTH AS SEEN BY THREE WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS, which opened at the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon, April 7-June 14, 1997 and traveled.
“I think I can affirm, and no one can deny, that Naomi Rosenblum is the ‘history of photography’, but for me she is much, much more. She is a friend, a confidant, a mother, a mentor, one of the nicest people I have ever known in my life, a person with an exceptional intellect and humanity. Together with Walter Rosenblum, their continuous help and support has been fundamental to my photographic career and to develop my humanity, and for all she has done for me, I will be eternally grateful.”