When a visitor first encounters the “Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna” exhibit which opened at the Center for Creative Photography on Jan. 31, they’re likely to focus on the blown-up photographs of modern architecture. If they take a closer look, they might be drawn in by the portraits of famous 20th-century figures.
But for Rebecca Senf, the CCP’s chief curator, the crux of the exhibit lies in the title.
“I think that she is a great example of how in the 20th century, there were opportunities for photographers, but in many ways, you were a freelancer,” Senf said. “You had to put together those opportunities in order to make a life in photography, in order to create a career. And so what I think is great about her is she is an example of one person and how she did that.”
The traveling exhibit comes courtesy of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center out of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York and highlights the work of photographer Rosalie Thorne McKenna from the mid-1940s through the late 1960s. Rollie, as she was known, lived from 1918 to 2003 and was largely self-taught as a photographer.
Her unusual biography reflects a period when even the idea of professional photography was still new. Born to a wealthy family, she graduated from Vassar in the early 1940s. She joined the Navy soon after the United States entered World War II, becoming the first American woman to earn the rank of sharpshooter. After the war, she returned to Vassar for a master’s degree in art history and then traveled around Europe, where she began photographing architecture.
Her portrait work began almost by accident. In the early 1950s, she visited poet Dylan Thomas and his family in his home country of Wales. Only a handful of photographs were ever taken of the reclusive poet and many of those were by McKenna from 1952 to 1953. Thomas had unfortunately suffered his untimely death that same year.
Her work became the definitive photographs of Thomas and were so popular that they were often reprinted without her permission. As word spread to other writers and artists, they sought her out.
“It was a little bit of luck in getting to meet Dylan Thomas […]. Although I think it’s also a reflection of her skill,” Senf said. “If she hadn’t been a person that could earn his trust and build a relationship with him, she wouldn’t have had portraits of him either.”
According to Senf, McKenna had an incredible ability to put her subjects at ease. Instead of a photography studio, she preferred capturing them wherever they felt comfortable, often in their own homes. She built a reputation as a masterful portraitist, photographing figures as prominent and diverse as American journalist Tom Wolfe, British visual artist Henry Moore and disability rights advocate Helen Keller.
“The variety and the number of famous artists and writers that she photographed was kind of remarkable,” Robert Briggs, another tourist who visited the museum with his wife Sharon, said.
McKenna also photographed street life in Mississippi in the early 1950s. She had been born and raised there and felt a deep connection with the South. Despite being candid, her photos in this period captured the dignity of both white and Black working-class subjects.
“I’ve never heard of this photographer, but I always try to seek out collections of street photography,” Ana Lombardo, a tourist visiting from New York, said. “It’s definitely a slice of street life in time, you know?”
Along with her portraits, the exhibit also features McKenna’s architectural photography. These images have a sense of space and scale and can even feel imposing, very unlike her intimate yet relaxed portraits.
Despite this contrast, both reflect her respect for intention. “She’s trying to make photographs that convey the significance of the architectural works in the way that the architect might have thought about it,” Senf said. “And in a similar way, she’s letting the artists and the writers present themselves in a way that feels authentic to them.”
The artistic world was not the only place where she made her own way. In 1965, she moved to a suburb in Stonington, Connecticut, where she quickly entered a romantic relationship with her next-door neighbor, Patricia D. Willson. They tore down the fences between their houses, creating a space called “The Compound”. The relationship lasted until Willson’s death in 1981. McKenna even helped raise many of Willson’s children, who called her O.M. — short for Other Mother.
“Everybody knew that Patricia Willson and Rollie McKenna were a couple and they knew them and liked them and thought they were good people,” Senf said. “So maybe even if they wouldn’t have said that they were open to supporting a gay relationship, in this specific example, they couldn’t object to anything about it.”
Mary-Kay Lombino and Jessica Brier, the curators for the Vassar exhibit, reached out to the CCP in part because they had a large archive of McKenna’s work courtesy of the Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation. The Foundation, started by a family friend after her death, chose to donate the archive to the University of Arizona rather than Vassar in the 2000s, hoping that the CCP’s renown among researchers would help a wider audience discover McKenna’s work.
When asked what she hoped visitors would take away from this exhibit, Senf highlighted that she wanted them to learn about a photographer most had likely never heard of. “But I also hope that they learn a little bit about what an archive is and how an archive helps scholars reconstruct a narrative about somebody’s life,” Senf said. “Any time an exhibition helps audiences understand why we’re here, that’s a really exciting opportunity.”
“Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna” will be on display from Jan. 31 to May 16 at the CCP at 1030 N. Olive Road. The museum is open to visitors Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
