Barbara Crane

Barbara Crane was well known as one of Chicago’s most experimental and prolific photographers who Victor M. Cassidy calls the “spiritual grandchild of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy”. Born in Chicago in 1928, Crane studied at Mills College, CA, and New York University before returning to Chicago to complete the graduate degree at the Institute of Design in 1966. From 1967 to 1995 Crane taught photography at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Barbara Crane received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships (1974, 1988), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1979), an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Photography (2001) and the first Ruth Horwich Award to a Famous Chicago Artist (2009). She exhibited internationally and her photographs are found in many major museums ranging from Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. to Paris and Kyoto. She also published numerous books, including Private Views (Aperture 2009) and Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision (Chicago Cultural Center 2009). Barbara Crane has had three solo exhibitions at Higher Pictures: Selected Early Works (2008); Repeats, 1969 - 1978 (2010); and Chicago Loop, 1976 - 1978 (2014).