Artist Statement

Karen Halverson has been photographing landscape for more than twenty years, primarily in the American West.  Her photographs are a commentary on how we encounter, occupy and alter the landscape.  She spent two years photographing the Colorado River system, with an emphasis on the human exploitation of the river.    Her book, "DOWNSTREAM, Encounters with the Colorado River" (University of California Press, 2008) is the result of that work. 

Halverson moved from Los Angeles to Columbia County in 2006.  Since then, she has been photographing locally, working on a new series tentatively called "Yard:  The Private Landscape".

Halverson's work is in numerous public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Library of Congress, The Corcoran Gallery, the St. Louis Museum of Art, and the Milwaukee Museum of Art.   She has taught at the University of Southern California and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Bio

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2009 Huntington Library and Art Galleries, San Marino, California,
"Downstream: Encounters with the Colorado River"
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, "Mulholland"
2008  Michael Dawson Gallery, Los Angeles, "Downstream: Encounters with
The Colorado River"
2003   Rose Gallery, Santa Monica, California, "Trees"
2002   Klotz/Sirmon Gallery, New York
1997   Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, “Shiprock and Beyond”
1996   Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, “Selections from the Colorado River      
Series”
1994  Troyer Fitzpatrick Lassman Gallery, Washington, DC, “Selections from the    
Mulholland Series”
1993  Schneider Bloom Loeb, Chicago
Paul Kopeikin Gallery, “From Montana to Mulholland”
1991  Witkin Gallery, New York
1990  Sandra Berler Gallery, Washington, DC, “Desert/Sky /Lines”
1988  Witkin Gallery, New York, “Night Images”

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2008   The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, "This Side of Paradise: Body and                      Landscape in Los Angeles Photography"

2007  The Barn Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts, "Night", "Art in Design in Art"

2006  The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, “Where We Live:  

                        Photographs of America from the Berman Collection”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, “Road Trip"
Saint Louis Art Museum,  “Recent Landscape Photography:  The Intimate and the  
Sublime"
2005   Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, “Contemporary
Desert Photography:  The Other Side of Paradise”
ArcLight Cinema, Hollywood, California, “Looking at Los Angeles”
2004   Klotz/Sirmon Gallery, New York, “An Embarrassment of Riches”
Ontario International Airport, California, “Direct Exposure: Perspectives on the
Southern California Landscape”
2003   San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “Pirkle Jones and the Changing California
Landscape”
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Landscape Photography after
Ansel Adams”
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, “A Decade of Collecting”
Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York, “Sylva”
(- 2004) “The Land Through a Lens:  Highlights from the Smithsonian
American Art Museum” traveling to:     
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida
Florida International University, Miami, Florida
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi
Louisiana Arts and Science Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois

2001  The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, “In Response to Place”
(– 2004) traveling to:
Houston Museum of Natural Science
Museum of Art, Atlanta
Field Museum, Chicago
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Museum Center, Cincinnati
Renaissance Center, Detroit
Bellevue Art Museum, Seattle
Minnesota Museum of American Art
Rhode Island School of Design
Baltimore Museum of Art
Huntington Library, San Marino, California, “ The Great Wide Open”
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, “Photographic Odysseys”
Parts Gallery, Minneapolis, “Purple Mountains Majesty Revisited”
Rockwell Museum of Western Art, Corning, New York, “Re-presenting
Representation V”
2000  Alan Klotz/Photocollect, New York, “Debuts and Updates”
University of Wyoming, Laramie, “Landscape 2000: Late Twentieth       
Century American Landscape Photography”

1.  Center for American Places, Harrisonburg, Virginia,  “Creating the North

American Landscape”

1.  Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts,  “Expanded

Visions:  The Panoramic Photograph”

1.  Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego,  “Under  the Dark Cloth: The

View Camera in Contemporary Photography”
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum,  “Photographs from the National
Museum of American Art”
1996   San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “Crossing the Frontier: 
Photographing the Developing West, 1849  to the Present”
(1996 – 1998) traveling to:
Yale University Museum of Art
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, “Perpetual Mirage
Photographic Narratives of the American West”

1.     Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “P.L.A.N.  Photography  Los Angeles Now”

1.  Los Angeles County Museum of Art,  “New Acquisitions/New Work/New

Directions2”
Colorado Gallery of the Arts, Arapahoe Community College, Littleton,
Colorado, “Real Visions: Photographs of the Southwest”
Gail Gibson Gallery, Seattle
1993  National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, “On Location:                  
Landscapes and Cityscapes in American Photographs from the
Museum’s Collection”
1992  National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC:
“Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape
Photography”
(1992 – 1995)  traveling to:
The Carnegie Museum of Art,
New  Orleans Museum of Art
New York State Museum
Hudson River Museum,
Cleveland Museum of Art,
Virginia Beach Center for the Arts,
Joslyn Museum of Art
Boise Art Museum
1990      Helander Gallery, New York

1. Seagram Corporation, New York
2. Cowles Annex Gallery, New York, “Stanford Artists in New York”

HBO Headquarters, New York, “Bar Scenes”

1. Photocollect Gallery, New York,  “Flora”
2. Brooklyn Museum, “Recent Acquisitions”
3. Museum of the City of New York, “Recent Acquisitions”
4. Witkin Gallery,  New York, “New York”

Photocollect Gallery, New York, “Six Photographers”

1.     Museum of the City of New York, “Recent Acquisitions”

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Library of Congress
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Milwaukee Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
Brooklyn Museum
Museum of the City of New York
The City of Phoenix, Arizona
US Department of State, American Embassy, La Paz, Bolivia
California State Supreme Court, San Francisco

CORPORATE COLLECTIONS

Goldman Sachs and Co, New York
Bear Stearns & Co, New York
Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, New York
First Boston Corporation, New York
St. Luke’s Hospital Corporation, New York
Nynex Corporation, New York
Boune of New York
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Texas Instruments, Houston
Texaco Corporation, Houston
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Sullivan and Cromwell, Washington
Covington and Burling, Washington
Robbins Kaplan Miller Ciresi, Washington
O’Melveny and Myers, Los Angeles
Freemont Insurance Group, Los Angeles
Creative Artists Agency, Los Angeles
Coastcast Corporation of Southern California
Prudential Insurance Company, Los Angeles
Gibson, Dunn, and Krutcher, Los Angeles
Consolidated Natural Gas Company Foundation, Pittsburgh
LaSalle National Bank, Chicago
Microsoft, Seattle

Downstream: Encounters with the Colorado River, University of California Press, 2008
(monograph)
This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photography, 2008
Where We live:  Photographs of America from the Berman Collection,  2006
Contemporary Desert Landscape:  The Other Side of Paradise, 2005
Looking at Los Angeles, D.A. P., 2005
The Land Through a Lens: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
2003
In Response to Place, Bulfinch Press, 2001
The Great Wide Open:  Panoramic Photographs of the American West, Merrell, 2001
Landscape 2000: Late Twentieth Century Landscape Photography, University of
Wyoming, 2000
Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing West, 1849 – Present, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1996
Treasures of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1995 (catalog and CD-ROM)
P.L.A.N. Photography Los Angeles Now (CD-ROM), Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, 1995
Nature Through Her Eyes, The Nature Company, 1994
Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography, Merry
Foresta, University of New Mexico Press, 1992
New Landscape, Kitaro Iizawa, Chikuma Shobo, Tokyo, 1991
Women Photographers, Constance Sullivan, Abrams, 1990

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, ARTICLES

Los Angeles Times, “Trees Tenderly Photographed”, March 7, 2003
LA Weekly, “Art Pick of the Week”, February 28 – March 6, 2003
Archipelago.org, from the Library of Congress, 2003
ZOOM, September/October, 2002
The New Yorker, June 17 & 24, 2002
NY Arts Magazine, September, 2001, “The Road to San Marino: Manifesting Destiny”
Los Angeles Times, “The Wide, Wide West”, June 17, 2001
Westways, “Shot on Sight: Exploring the Human Imprint on the Landscape”,
March, 1997 (text and images)
Newsweek, “Shooting the West”, August 5, 1996
Artweek, “End of the Road: Environmental Landscape Photography”, July, 1996
Los Angeles Times, “Mighty Colorado”, May 9, 1996
Artnews, February, 1995 (cover image)
Asahi Camera Photography Journal, Tokyo, August, 1994
Washington City Paper, “Lens of the Beholder”, February 4, 1994
Photo Review, Winter, 1993
New City, Chicago, November 11, 1993
Los Angeles Times, “Focusing on Mulholland Drive’s Split Personality”, February
14, 1993
Los Angeles Daily News, “The Long and Winding Road”, February 5, 1993
Buzz, January/February, 1993 (portfolio)
View Camera, “Women and Landscape”, May, 1991

Intrawest Corporation, 2001: to create a photographic series in the Owens Valley,
California
The Nature Conservancy, 2000: to create a series of photographs on the Cosumnes
River Preserve as part of the exhibition and book, “In Response to Place”

University of Southern California, Department of Policy, Planning, and Development,
1999 - 2000: to create the series “The International Face of Southern California:
Photographic Portraits of the Foreign-Born”

STAFF POSITIONS

University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television, Lecturer, 1994 –
2006
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, 1991 – 1992, 2002, 2004
UCLA – Extension, 1992
International Center of Photography, New York, 1978 – 1990
York College, City University of New York, 1981 – 1982

The J. Paul Getty Museum College Outreach Program, 2006
Pine Butte Guest Ranch, Choteau, Montana, 2004, 2006, 2007
Julia Dean Workshops, Marina del Rey, California, 2001 – Present
Phil Bard Photography Workshops, Pasadena, California, 1998 - 1999

Los Angeles Valley College, 2007
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Panel Discussion, 2006
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Gallery Talk, 2003
Huntington Museum, Pasadena, California, 2001, Panelist, “The Great Wide Open”
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, 1999, Guest Artist
National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, 1998, Panelist “The Legacy of
Ansel Adams: Landscape Photography and Environmental Advocacy”
Los Angeles Public Library, 1996, Guest Lecturer
Arizona State University, 1996, Guest Lecturer, “Women and Landscape Photography”
Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, 1991, Guest Artist

EDUCATION

BA, Stanford University, Philosophy, Honors Program
MA, Brandeis University, History of Ideas, Tuition Fellowship
MA, Columbia University, Anthropology, Danforth Fellowship
Private study in photography with Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz
Selected film courses, Columbia University, School of the Arts

Contact

Khalvgg@yahoo.com
518-766-0698

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