Sunny in the Sauna, L’Hotel Paris, from the Elton John AIDS Foundation Photography Portfolio I

About the Photographer

Goldin, Nan

American, b. 1953

Nan Goldin is known for documenting her surrogate family of friends as they engage in intimate, uninhibited, or illicit activities. These unusually lit images are frank confrontations with personal experience, frequently presented in poses that mimic the styles of the fashion world. Goldin visited that world through photographs she took for a New York Times Magazine cover story – "James is a Girl," by Jennifer Egan – that appeared on February 4, 1996. King’s languid and mature pose in this photograph speaks of a teenager thrust into the fashion industry spotlight.

Nan Goldin has spent more than twenty-five years creating edgy portraits. In 1996 these startlingly direct color images were the subject of a mid-career retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, which traveled to Winterthur, Germany; Vienna; and Amsterdam, among other international venues. She has earned the Mother Jones Photography Award, a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Maine Photographic Workshop Book Award for Documentary Book of the Year. Born in Washington, DC in 1953, Goldin earned her BFA (1977) and 5th Year Masters Certificate from The School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.