Catherine Opie

Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961) is an American fine art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Opie studies the connections between mainstream and infrequent society. By specializing in portraiture, studio, and landscape photography, she is able to create pieces relating to sexual identity. Through photography, Opie documents the relationship between the individual and the space inhabited, offering an exploration of the American identity, particularly probing the tensions between the constructed American dream and the diverse realities of its citizens. Merging conceptual and documentary styles, Opie's oeuvre gravitates towards portraiture and landscapes, utilizing serial images and unexpected compositions to both spotlight and blur the lines of gender, community, and place while invoking the formal gravitas reminiscent of Renaissance portraiture and hinting at her deep engagement with the history of art and painting.

She is known for her portraits exploring the Los Angeles leather-dyke community. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and she has won awards including the United States Artists Fellowship (2006) and the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Women’s Caucus for Art (2009).

Life
Opie was born in Sandusky, Ohio. She spent her early childhood in Ohio and was influenced heavily by photographer Lewis Hine. At the age of nine, she received a Kodak Instamatic camera and immediately began taking photographs of her family and community. She evolved as an artist at age 14 when she created her own darkroom. Her family moved from Ohio to California in 1975. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1985.

She later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1988. Before arriving at CalArts, she was a strictly black-and-white photographer. Opie's thesis project entitled Master Plan (1988) examined a wide variety of topics. The project looked deeper into construction sites, advertisement schemes, homeowner regulations, and the interior layout of their homes within the community of Valencia, California.

In 1988, Opie moved to Los Angeles, California, and began working as an artist. She supported herself by accepting a job as a lab technician at the University of California, Irvine. Opie and her former partner, painter Julie Burleigh, constructed working studios in the backyard of their home in South Central Los Angeles.

In 2001, Opie gave birth to a boy named Oliver through intrauterine insemination.

At the Hammer Museum, Opie was on the first Artist Council (a series of sessions with curators and museum administrators) and served on the board of overseers. Along with fellow artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, and Ed Ruscha, Opie served as a member of the board for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2012, she and the others resigned; however, they joined the museum's 14-member search committee for a new director after Jeffrey Deitch's resignation in 2013. Opie returned in support of the museum's new director, Philippe Vergne, in 2014. She was also on the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation.

Along with Richard Hawkins, Opie curated a selection of work by the late artist Tony Greene at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, in New York. As of 2017, Opie has her studio at The Brewery Art Colony.

Art
Opie's work is characterized by a combination of formal concerns, a variety of printing technologies, references to art history, and social/political commentary. It demonstrates a mix between traditional photography and unconventional subjects. For example, she explores abstraction in the landscape vis-a-vis the placement of the horizon line in the Icehouses (2001) and Surfers (2003) series. She has printed photographs using Chronochrome, Iris prints, Polaroids, and silver photogravure. Examples of art history references include the use of bright color backgrounds in portraits that reference the work of Hans Holbein and the full-body frontal portraits that reference August Sander. Opie also depicts herself with her son in the traditional pose of Madonna and Child in Self Portrait/Nursing (2004).

Opie first came to be known with Being and Having (1991) and Portraits (1993–1997), which portray queer communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Being and Having looks at the outward portrayal of masculinity and is a reference to 17th-century Old Master portraiture. It conveyed strong ideals and perceptions among persons of the LGBT community, referencing gender, age, race, and identity; all constructed surrounding identity. This body of work similarly plays with performative aspects and play. These works read as iconography themselves.

The use of certain symbols in her works has allowed these portraits to sit separately from any of her previous works. For instance, the portrait Self Portrait/Pervert (1994) uses blood. The symbolism used in this work is recognized as a recurring statement for Opie, personally and allegorically. These images convey symbolic references to the celebration, embracing, and remembrance of the shift and personal relationship with one's body. Opie's use of blood is also seen in another work entitled Self-portrait/Cutting (1993).

Opie's earlier work relies more heavily on documentary photography as opposed to allegorical, yet still provides a stark relationship to her investigation and use of powerful iconography throughout the years.

A common social/political theme in her work is the concept of community. Opie has investigated aspects of community, making portraits of many groups including the LGBT community, surfers, and most recently, high school football players. Opie is interested in how identities are shaped by our surrounding architecture. Her work is informed by her identity as an out lesbian. Her works balance personal and political. Her assertive portraits bring queers to a forefront that is normally silenced by societal norms. Her work also explores how the idea of family varies between straight and LGBTQ communities. Opie highlights that LGBTQ households often base their families on close friendships and community, while straight families focus on their individual families.

Opie has referenced problems of visibility, where the reference to Renaissance paintings in her images declares the individuals as saints or characters. Opie's portraits document, celebrate, and protect the community and individuals in which she photographs. In Portraits (1993–1997), she presents a variety of identities among the queer community, such as drag kings, cross-dressers, and F-to-M transexuals.

This Los Angeles-focused series sparked her ongoing project American Cities (1997–present), which is a collection of panoramic black-and-white photographs of quintessential American cities. This series is similar to an earlier work of hers, Domestic (1995–1998), which documented her 2-month RV road trip, portraying lesbian families engaging in everyday household activities across the country.

Drawing inspiration from the transgressive photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and sex radicals, who provided a space for liberals and feminists, Opie has also explored controversial topics and imagery in her work. In her O folio—6 photogravures from 1999—Opie photographed S-M porn images she took earlier for On Our Backs, but as extreme close-ups.

In 2011, Opie photographed the home of the actress Elizabeth Taylor in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Taylor died during the project and never met Opie. Opie took 3,000 images for the project; 129 comprised the completed study. The resultant images were published as 700 Nimes Road. Collector Daily noted the "relentless femininity of Taylor's taste" in the images contrasted with Opie's self-declared "identity as a butch woman" in Opie's forward to 700 Nimes Road and Opie's "status as an ordinary mortal" in comparison to Taylor's stardom.

Opie's first film, The Modernist (2017), is a tribute to French filmmaker Chris Marker's 1962 classic La Jetée. Composed of 800 still images, the film features Pig Pen (aka Stosh Fila)—a genderqueer performance artist—as the protagonist. The Modernist has been described as an ode to the city in which it takes place, Los Angeles, but it is also seen as questioning the legacy of modernism in America. In summary, the twenty-two-minute film is about an aggravated artist who just wants his own home as he has fallen in love with the architecture of Los Angeles. Being unable to purchase a place to live, the performance artist goes around burning down lovely architecture of LA.

Teaching
Opie's teaching career began in 2001 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2019, UCLA announced Opie as the university’s inaugural endowed chair in the art department, a position underwritten by a $2-million gift from philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick.

Publications

 * Freeways. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 * Catherine Opie, essays by Kate Bush, Joshua Decter & Russell Ferguson. The Photographers' Gallery, London.
 * Catherine Opie: In Between Here and There. Saint Louis, MO: Saint Louis Art Museum, 2000. With an essay by Rochelle Steiner. Exhibition catalogue.
 * Catherine Opie. The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2000.
 * Catherine Opie: Skyways and Ice Houses. Walker Art Center 2002.
 * 1999 / In and Around Home. The Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art, Ridgefield, CT, and the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, 2006.
 * Chicago (American Cities), curated by Elizabeth T.A. Smith, published by Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2006.
 * Catherine Opie: An American Photographer. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2008. ISBN 978-0892073757
 * "Catherine Opie" This is Not to be Looked At. Morse, Rebecca. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2008.
 * Catherine Opie: Empty and Full, Molesworth, Helen, ed. Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart, 2011. ISBN 978-3775730150
 * 700 Nimes Road, Catherine Opie, with essays by Hilton Als, Ingrid Sischy, Prestel, Munich, 2015. ISBN 978-3791354255
 * Catherine Opie: Keeping an Eye on the World. Buchhandlung Walter König, König, 2017.
 * Catherine Opie, with essays by Hilton Als, Douglas Fogle, Helen Molesworth, Elizabeth A.T. Smith, interview by Charlotte Cotton, Phaidon Press, New York, 2021. ISBN 978-1838662189

Notable works in public collections

 * Master Plan (Floor Series) (1986-1988), Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California
 * Burnt House from Burlington and Ninth Street (1990), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
 * Being and Having (1991), Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * Angela Scheirl (1993), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * Dyke (1993), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York; and Whitney Museum, New York
 * Jo (1993), Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.; and Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts
 * Mike and Sky (1993), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.; and Whitney Museum, New York
 * Pig Pen (1993), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
 * Self Portrait/Cutting (1993), Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum, New York
 * Untitled #1, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York
 * Untitled #5, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
 * Untitled #16, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada
 * Untitled #20, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Whitney Museum, New York
 * Untitled #27, from the series Freeway (1993-1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 * Crystal Mason (1994), Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands; and Rubell Museum, Miami and Washington, D.C.
 * Richard (1994), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
 * Ron Athey (1994), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Whitney Museum, New York
 * Self Portrait/Pervert (1994), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
 * Trash (1994), Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis
 * Vaginal Davis (1994), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
 * Flipper, Tanya, Chloe, & Harriet, San Francisco, California (1995), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum, New York
 * Dyke Deck (1996), Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
 * Divinity Fudge (1997), Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska
 * Untitled #1, from the series Mini-malls (1997-1998), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 * Melissa & Lake, Durham, North Carolina (1998), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Tate, London
 * Tammy Rae & Kaia, Durham, North Carolina (1998), Saint Louis Art Museum; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
 * Freedom, Oklahoma (1999), Victoria and Albert Museum, London
 * Untitled, Divinity (2000), Seattle Art Museum
 * Untitled #1, from the series Wall Street (2000-2001), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
 * Untitled #11, from the series Wall Street (2000-2001), Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida; and Tate, London
 * Untitled #9, from the series Icehouses (2001), Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
 * Untitled #10, from the series Icehouses (2001), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
 * Self Portrait/Nursing (2004), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
 * Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer (Lake Michigan) (2004-2005), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
 * Football Landscape #3 (Notre Dame vs. St. Thomas More, Lafayette, LA) (2007), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
 * Kate (Bike) (2007), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
 * Saint-Gilles-du-Gard (2007), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
 * Football Landscape #13 (Twentynine Palms vs. Big Bear, Twentynine Palms, CA) (2008), Los Angeles County Museum of Art
 * Inauguration portfolio (2009), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 * Jewelry Boxes #6, from the portfolio 700 Nimes Road (2010-2011), Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
 * Elizabeth (2013), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
 * Thelma and Duro (2017), National Portrait Gallery, London
 * monument/monumental (2020), The Broad, Los Angeles

Awards

 * Citibank Private Bank Emerging Artist Award (1997)
 * CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts (2003)
 * Larry Aldrich Award (2004)
 * United States Artists Fellowship (2006)
 * Women's Caucus for Art: President's Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009)
 * Archives of American Art Medal (2016)
 * National Academy member (2016)
 * Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2019)

In popular culture
Her name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic."

Links to Works

 * Self-Portrait/Pervert by Catherine Opie
 * Dyke by Catherine Opie
 * Self Portrait/Nursing by Catherine Opie
 * Lawrence by Catherine Opie
 * Being and Having by Catherine Opie
 * Joanne, Betsy, & Olivia, Bayside, New York by Catherine Opie
 * Melissa & Lake, Durham, North Carolina by Catherine Opie
 * Pig Pen (tattoos) by Catherine Opie