Collecting Conversations: Joanne Leonard

Online conversation with artist Joanne Leonard in the Ransom Center series "Collecting Conversations: Five Women in American Photography."
Program Description
In this conversation with Dr. Jessica S. McDonald, the Ransom Center’s curator of photography, artist Joanne Leonard recalls her role in a photographic survey project intended to study the impact of technology on the lives of workers in the late 1970s; instead of corporate or industrial environments, Leonard went into private homes to produce a series of photographs that explore “a woman's place and the machines and gadgets that inhabit it.” Leonard also discusses her subsequent intimate, autobiographical works. She relates feeling bolstered in those years by the women’s movement, both by the inclusion of her work in feminist publications like Ms. and Heresies, and by the intellectual framework it provided during challenging transitions in her life.
Artist Bio
Joanne Leonard is a photographer, photo-collage artist, educator, and writer whose work has contributed to a range of fields from fine art to autobiography studies. After teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s and 70s, she taught at the University of Michigan for 31 years, and is now Distinguished Professor Emerita in the School of Art and Design and Department of Women's Studies. Her monograph Being in Pictures: An Intimate Photo Memoir was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2008. More information: www.beinginpictures.com.
Series Description
Collecting Conversations: Five Women in American Photography is a series of timely interviews with five artists whose work has recently entered the Ransom Center’s photography collection: Betty Hahn, Joanne Leonard, Joan Lyons, Bea Nettles, and Susan Ressler. Conducted by Dr. Jessica S. McDonald, the Ransom Center’s curator of photography, these expansive conversations introduce newly acquired works and situate them within each artist’s creative practice and personal life. The series culminates in a lively panel discussion aimed at exploring the cultural and institutional conditions that have affected these artists’ careers and have shaped our collections over the last half century. The group talks candidly about successes and failures, and about what it means for an artist, or her work, to be “rediscovered” now.
[Featured image: Joanne Leonard (American, b. 1940). Kitchen with Can Opener and Blender (Home of Joanne’s Uncle and Aunt, G. Peter and Patricia Lee Rosenfeld, Shannon Road), Los Angeles, CA, ca. 1978. Gelatin silver print, 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (image). Photography collection, gift of the artist in honor of her sisters Eleanor Rubin and Barbara Handelman, 2020:0002:0044. © Joanne Leonard]
Artist Joanne Leonard with Dr. Jessica S. McDonald, curator of photography
Recorded April 8, 2021
Released February 17, 2022
Part of the series Collecting Conversations: Five Women in American Photography
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