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. In addition to her work as an artist, she is a scholar and educator. She earned a PhD at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in visual communication and ethnographic research.
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. Photographs from On the Nest have been included in three Photographic Portrait Prize exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London, winning Third Prize in 2011. Schwartz’s work is included in the collections of the Library of Congress, 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.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Schwartz lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Calgary. Schwartz is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto.
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.
