American Female Photographers

Anna-Lou Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer whose career is defined by intimate photographs of celebrities, as exemplified by her famous portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, hours before the English musician’s murder. The Rolling Stone magazine provided the platform for her photographic talent during the early years of her career. She was involved in a controversy over an apparent topless photo of Miley Cyrus.

Vivian Maier was an American street photographer whose works received critical acclaim after her death. Maier's photographs were unpublished during her lifetime. However, her works went viral on the internet when it was published on Flickr five months after her death. Vivian Maier's life and work have inspired documentary films like Finding Vivian Maier.

Best known for his black and white photographs, Robert Mapplethorpe chose homoerotic themes to express himself. His male nudes reflected the gay BDSM subculture of New York. His works also included flowers, still lifes, and portraits of celebrities. The gay photographer-artist eventually died of aids.

Sally Mann is an American photographer whose works prompted Time magazine to name her America's Best Photographer in the year 2001. She is best known for releasing photography books such as At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, Still Time, and Immediate Family. Her photographs are displayed in popular art museums like Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Gallery of Art.

Canadian-American actor Barbara Parkins was a 60s’ icon and is best remembered as Betty Anderson from the series Peyton Place and Anne Welles from the film Valley of the Dolls. The Emmy-nominated actor is now a wildlife activist and a photographer. She has also appeared in Playboy magazine.

Born in Hungary, Sylvia Plachy fled to the US with her family after the Hungarian Revolution. Now a renowned photographer, she is mainly known for her stint with the US newsweekly The Village Voice. A Guggenheim fellow and a Lucie Award winner, she is also the mother of Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody.

Italian-American photographer Tina Modotti was the daughter of migrant laborers in Austria. She later worked in a textile factory in Italy, before moving to the U.S., where she acted in Italian theater. Initially excelling in still lifes and portraits, she later gained fame for her signature close-ups of Mexican workers.

Catherine Leroy was a French-born American war photographer and photojournalist. She is best remembered for capturing scenes from the Vietnam War which appeared in major publications like Life magazine. Over the course of her illustrious career, Catherine Leroy won several prestigious awards, such as the George Polk Award in Journalism and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award.

Vanessa Beecroft is a contemporary performance artist who often works with professional models to stage tableaux vivants. In 2018, she used Kim Kardashian as her model for the release of the latter's perfume brand. A controversial personality, Vanessa Beecroft's unsuccessful attempt to adopt Sudanese twins inspired a derogative documentary titled The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins by Pietra Brettkelly.

Photographer Helen Levitt is remembered as one of the most celebrated street photographers of her time. Her works, depicting New York City, were later published as A Way of Seeing: Photographs of New York. Her subjects were mostly underprivileged children. She had also been a cinematographer for documentary films.