Moyra Davey

Moyra Davey (born in Toronto in 1958) is an artist living and working in New York since 1988. Davey works across photography, video, and writing. She is well known for her experimental films that take root in written monologues, her human and animal portraits, and her essays that pair photography and language. She is a graduate of University of California, San Diego, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Early life and education
Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She grew up in Montreal, where she studied photography and received a BFA from Concordia University in 1982. She then achieved an MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. In 1989, she attended The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Career
Since the late 1970s, Davey has built a body of work composed of photographs, writings, and video. She was previously a faculty member at the Bard College International Center of Photography Program.

Davey is represented by greengrassi, London and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York.

Publications

 * Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood. Edited by Davey (New York: Seven Stories, 2001). ISBN 1583220720
 * The Problem of Reading (Los Angeles: Documents Books, 2003). ISBN 0974260509
 * Long Life Cool White: Photographs and Essays by Moyra Davey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Introduction by Helen Molesworth. ISBN 9780300136463
 * Copperheads (Toronto: Byewater Bros. Editions, 2010). ISBN 9780978078935
 * Speaker Receiver (Berlin: Sternberg, 2010). Essays by George Baker, Bill Horrigan, Chris Kraus, and Eric Rosenberg, and an interview by Adam Szymczyk. ISBN 9781934105207.
 * The Wet and the Dry (Paris: Paraguayress, 2011). Edited by castillo/corrales and Will Holder. ISBN 9782918252115
 * Empties (Vancouver: Presentation House, 2013).
 * Burn the Diaries (Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes, 2014). ISBN 9780985337728
 * I'm Your Fan (London: Camden Arts Centre, 2014).
 * Les Goddesses / Hemlock Forest (Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes, 2017). Introduction by Aveek Sen. ISBN 9780998632605
 * Gold Dumps and Ant Hills (Berlin: Toupée, 2017). ISBN 9783981735710
 * Index Cards: Selected Essays (New Directions, 2020). Edited by Nicolas Linnert. ISBN 9780811229517
 * I Confess (Ottawa/Brooklyn: National Gallery of Canada and Dancing Foxes, 2020). Essays by Dalie Giroux and Andrea Kunard. ISBN 9780888849960

Solo exhibitions

 * 1985 – Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario
 * 1994 – Moyra Davey, Peter Doig, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York; American Fine Arts, Co., New York
 * 2006 – Monologues (with Julia Scher), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
 * 2008 – Long Life Cool White, The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 * 2009 – My Necropolis, Arch II Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
 * 2010 – Speaker Receiver, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland
 * 2013 – Ornament and Reproach, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver
 * 2013 – Hangmen of England, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
 * 2014 – Burn the Diaries, Mumok, Vienna; Camden Arts Centre, London
 * 2017 – Empties, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne
 * 2017 – Portrait / Landscape, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin
 * 2017 – Hell Notes, Portikus, Frankfurt
 * 2018 – Hell Notes,, Bielefeld
 * 2018 – "1943", Galerie Buchholz, New York
 * 2018 – Bring My Garters/Do Nothing, experimenter, Kolkata
 * 2019 – Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey, Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto
 * 2019 – Les Goddesses, Art Institute of Chicago
 * 2019 – i confess, greengrassi, London
 * 2020 – Moyra Davey Peter Hujar, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (with Peter Hujar)
 * 2020 – The Faithful, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
 * 2020 – Lanak/Obras/Works, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
 * 2022 – Film series, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Awards

 * 2004 – Anonymous Was A Woman Award
 * 2010 – The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
 * 2018 – Scotiabank Photography Award
 * 2020 – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
 * 2022 – Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts

Collections
Davey's work is held in the following permanent collections:
 * Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri;
 * Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * Tate, London
 * Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
 * Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
 * Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
 * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
 * Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 * National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
 * National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
 * Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto