Katy Grannan
Since receiving her M.A. from Yale in 1999, Katy Grannan has been exhibiting her photographs throughout Europe and America to increasing critical acclaim. The Massachusetts-born Grannan produces distinctive, haunting portraits, often using the mundane particulars of everyday lives to heighten our sense of her subjects’ individuality.
In images for the New York Times Magazine, Katy Grannan focuses on such poignant details as the teenager’s imperfect complexion, the sick man’s drooping muscles, a tidy kitchen counter, or a neighborhood swing to make us understand heartrending realities of juvenile imprisonment, end-of-life decisions, or post-traumatic stress syndrome. For several of her art gallery projects, Grannan advertised for subjects in small-town newspapers. As she gained the sitters’ trust and helped visualize their fantasies, many posed nude or partially undressed. In Grannan’s work for the Times, we recognize similar qualities of risk, vulnerability, and, ultimately, empathy between the photographer and her subjects.
Keli
Katy Grannan
Chromogenic print, 2007
Published in New York Times Magazine, March 18, 2007
Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City
© Katy Grannan
This photograph was part of Sara Corbett’s New York Times Magazine article “The Women’s War,” which described the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on the lives of Iraq War veterans. All of these subjects faced serious challenges in connecting to the ordinary lives that the photographs so poignantly evoke.
Kathleen
Katy Grannan
Chromogenic print, 2007
Published in New York Times Magazine, March 18, 2007
Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City
© Katy Grannan
This photograph was part of Sara Corbett’s New York Times Magazine article “The Women’s War,” which described the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on the lives of Iraq War veterans. All of these subjects faced serious challenges in connecting to the ordinary lives that the photographs so poignantly evoke.
Jeff Stackhouse
Katy Grannan
Chromogenic print, 2000
Published in New York Times Magazine, September 10, 2000
Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg, Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City
© Katy Grannan
Grannan’s photograph of Jeff Stackhouse appeared in a New York Times Magazine article exploring the growing number of teenagers serving time in adult prison facilities. Stackhouse was fifteen when the article appeared in 2000.
Audrey Wilbur
Katy Grannan
Chromogenic print, 2000
Cover for New York Times Magazine, March 19, 2000
Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City
© Katy Grannan
This portrait of four-year-old Audrey Wilbur is a study in contrasts between the cheerful fabrics of the clothing and decor and the impoverished bareness of the room’s mattress, walls, and floor. Grannan’s depiction of Audrey, made at the height of the dot-com bubble, was the cover for the New York Times Magazine’s March 19, 2000, issue, which included James Fallows’s “The Invisible Poor” and a photo essay titled “In the Shadow of Wealth.”
Forest Whitaker
Katy Grannan
Chromogenic print, 2007
Variant image published in New York Times Magazine, February 11, 2007
Collection of the artist, courtesy Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York City; Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Salon 94, New York City
© Katy Grannan
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