Rosalind Solomon archive

Rosalind Fox was born April 2, 1930 in Highland Park, Illinois. She graduated from Goucher College in 1951, then traveled to Belgium and France with The Experiment in International Living. In 1953, she married Jay Solomon and moved to Chattanooga, TN, and soon after they had two children (they later divorced in 1984). Solomon was the Regional Director of The Experiment in International Living and recruited host families throughout the southern United States to receive international guests. In 1962, Solomon and her family traveled to Chile as part of The Experiment in International Living. Between 1963-1965, Solomon worked as an Equal Employment Recruiter for the Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of State. From the 1960s onward, Solomon traveled to Mexico, Tokyo, Israel, India, Nepal, Portugal, Indonesia, Australia, Peru, and several other countries.

While in Tokyo, Solomon used Kodak Instamatic and made color slides, and ultimately decided to become a photographer. She soon after purchased a Nikkormat and set up a home darkroom to process black-and-white photographs. In 1970, Solomon held her first solo exhibition. In 1974, Solomon studied with Lisette Model during visits to New York City. During this time, Solomon began to photograph damaged dolls, as well as people, at a monthly market in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1975, she started to use a Mamiya 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ inch camera to photograph patients in Chattanooga as well as Sicily and Mexico. One of Solomon’s first exhibited photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York evolved from her Sicily trip.

In 1979, Solomon received a Guggenheim fellowship and moved to New York City. Solomon also created the portfolio, Washington Collages, with five copies published. In 1980, Solomon’s portfolio, Carnival Album, edition of 4 albums was published. Shortly after, Solomon returned to Peru and photographed as well as started making audiovisual recordings on super 8 film. Between 1981 and 1983, the American Institute of Indian Studies awarded Solomon a fellowship to photograph Indian festivals.

Through the mid to late 1980s, Solomon worked consistently on her photography projects: she produced two installation pieces, Adiós and Catacombs; took a series of NYC street portraits and portraits outside of Buddhist temples in Nepal; had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; and started her AIDS project.

In 1988, the Grey Art Gallery at New York University exhibited Solomon’s AIDS photographs and published a catalog, Portraits in the Time of AIDS. The same year, Solomon received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support her work in South Africa and Ireland. Over the next two years, Solomon continued to travel around the world for her photography projects.

Between 1992 and 1994, Solomon lived part-time in New Orleans to photograph musicians and festivals. Over the next decade, she continued to travel to South Africa, Peru, Tibet, India, Nepal, Israel, Jordan, and Italy. In 1998, Solomon finished the video project, To Highlands. In 2003, Solomon published the monograph Chapalingas, a retrospective of the years 1975-2001, and in 2006, she published the monograph Polish Shadows.

To date, Solomon continues to show in group and solo exhibitions. In 2016, Solomon was honored with the Lucie Award in the Achievement in Portraiture category.