Dona Schwartz is a photographic artist whose work explores everyday life and culture. Her work examines definitions of family and the nature of domesticity, cultural continuity and change, and transitional moments in life.
She has published two photographic ethnographies, Waucoma Twilight: Generations of the Farm (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) and Contesting the Super Bowl (Routledge, 1997). Her photographic monograph, In the Kitchen, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2009. On the Nest, also published by Kehrer, was released in December 2015.
Schwartz’s award-winning photographs have been internationally exhibited and published. Her work is included in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Center for Creative Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Musée de l’Elysée, the George Eastman House, the Harry Ransom Center, the Portland Art Museum, and the Kinsey Institute.
Dona Schwartz’s portraits of expectant parents in the nursery rooms they’ve created before their first child’s birth — and empty nesters in the abandoned rooms of teenagers after they’ve left home — capture moments of life’s transitions with a richness of detail and emotion.
