Skip to profile content
Log In
All Artists

Shelby Lee Adams

Works

Filters

Size
0 in 120 in
Reset
Orientation
Portrait Landscape Square
Price
$0 $10,000
Reset
Clear Filters
  1. Untitled II by Shelby Lee Adams, Image 1.

    Shelby Lee Adams

    Untitled II

Shelby Lee Adams is based in western Massachusetts and eastern Kentucky. He holds degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art, University of Iowa, and the Cleveland Institute of Art. His career has focused on photographs of the Appalachian region in Kentucky, for which he has received broad acclaim. His work is held in numerous significant permanent collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. He has also received several prestigious awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Continuing in the tradition of iconic documentary photographers of the Depression era, Adams began his career photographing the people of his native Appalachia using black-and-white film. Yet Adams does not identify himself as a true documentary photographer, but as one who has been seeking to find truths about himself and the things that connect us all as humans. He describes his work as autobiographical, people-oriented, personal, and subjective, with humanistic and artistic concerns. Recently, he has shifted away from the black-and-white documentary film tradition to make digital photographs in color.
Image of artist