Leo Rubinfien is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 photographer and essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

ist. He lives and works in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Biography

Rubinfien first came to prominence as part of the circle of artist-photographers who investigated new color techniques and materials in the 1970s. His first one-person exhibition was held at Castelli Graphics, New York, in 1981 and he has since had solo exhibitions at institutions that have included the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

, the Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...

, the Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art

Corcoran Gallery of Art

The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...

, Washington, DC. He is the author of two books of photographs, A Map of the East (Godine, Thames & Hudson, Toshi Shuppan, 1992), and Wounded Cities (Steidl, 2008.)

Rubinfien is also an active writer, who has published numerous extended essays on major photographers of the 20th century. He has contributed a memoir, “Colors of Daylight” to Starburst: Color Photography in America, 1970-1980 (Kevin Moore, Cincinnati Art Museum

Cincinnati Art Museum

The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.Museum founders debated locating...

 / Hatje Caantz 2010) and produced the long personal and historical essay in Wounded Cities, which recounts the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the years that followed. In 2001-2004, he served as Guest Co-curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective of the work of Shomei Tomatsu

Shomei Tomatsu

is a Japanese photographer.Born Teruaki Tōmatsu in Nagoya in 1930, Tōmatsu studied economics at Aichi University, graduating in 1954. While still a student, he had his photographs published by the major Japanese photography magazines. He entered Iwanami and worked on the series Iwanami Shashin Bunko...

 and is co-author of Shomei Tomatsu / Skin of the Nation (Yale University Press, 2004). Since 2010, he has been serving as Guest Curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

’s retrospective of the work of Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand was a street photographer known for his portrayal of America in the mid-20th century. John Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation....

, which will begin a world tour in 2013.

Rubinfien’s work has been acquired for numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

, the Whitney Museum of American Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

, the Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...

, the Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Corcoran Gallery of Art

Corcoran Gallery of Art

The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...

, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Yale University Art Gallery

Yale University Art Gallery

The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...

, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Israel Museum

Israel Museum

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

 and the Center for Creative Photography

Center for Creative Photography

The Center for Creative Photography , established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American photographers including those of Edward Weston, Harry Callahan and Garry...

 of the University of Arizona

University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

. He has held fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...

, Japan Foundation

Japan Foundation

The was established in 1972 by an Act of the Japanese Diet as a special legal entity to undertake international dissemination of Japanese culture, and became an independent administrative institution under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry of Japan on 1 October 2003 under the "Independent...

, Asian Cultural Council

Asian Cultural Council

The Asian Cultural Council is an American non-profit organization dedicated to providing support to Asian-American cultural exchange in the areas of visual and performing arts.- History :...

, and the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University, and in 2009 was awarded the Gold Prize at the 5th Lianzhou International Photography Festival.

Exhibitions by Rubinfien are scheduled for 2011 at the Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Kurenboh Gallery, Tokyo, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

The in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting contemporary Japanese art.This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT...

.

Rubinfien is represented by the Robert Mann Gallery

Robert Mann Gallery

Robert Mann Gallery is a New York based fine art gallery specializing in photography, established in 1985. The gallery’s program includes exhibitions of vintage masterworks as well as installations of contemporary photography that contextualize and promote newer movements in the field...

, New York and the Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo.

Publications

Rubinfien, Leo; 2010. The Ardbeg. Taka Ishii Gallery and KURENBOH.

Moore, Kevin (Author), Crump, James (Contributor), Rubinfien, Leo (Contributor); 2010. Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980. Hatje Cantz. ISBN: 978-3775724906

Rubinfien, Leo; 2008. Wounded Cities. Steidl. ISBN: 978-3-86521-676-2

Rubinfien, Leo (Author), Phillips, Sandra S. (Author), Dower, John (Author), Tomatsu, Shomei (Author); 2004. Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation. Yale University Press. ISBN: 978-0300106046

Rubinfien, Leo; 1994. 10 Takeoffs 5 Landings. Robert Mann Gallery. ASIN

Asín

Asín is a municipality located in the Cinco Villas comarca of the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, located a few kilometers west of Orés. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 106 inhabitants....

: B0006PBJ0Y

Rubinfien, Leo; 1992. A Map of the East. David R Godine. ISBN: 0879239433

Reviews

http://www.eyecurious.com/review-leo-rubinfien-a-map-of-the-east/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/nov/13/infocus-leo-ruibinfien-photography

http://5b4.blogspot.com/search?q=map+of+the+east

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_02/3826

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/10/arts/review-photography-lone-wanderer-s-view-of-an-exotic-asia-and-its-odd-details.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/arts/design/25toma.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112100771.html

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1993/mar/25/americainerie/

External links

• http://www.robertmann.com/artists/rubinfien/image_01.html
• http://www.takaishiigallery.com/
• http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/levitt_rubinfien.html
• http://www.steidlville.com/artists/492-Leo-Rubinfien.html