Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane Evelyn Atwood was born in New York and has been living in France since 1971. Her work reflects a deep involvement with her subjects over long periods of time. Fascinated by people and by the idea of exclusion, she has managed to penetrate worlds that most of us do not know, or choose to ignore.

She is the author of thirteen books: Nächtlicher Alltag on Parisian prostitutes (Mahnert-Lueg, Munich, 1980); Légionnaires, 18 months with one regiment of the Foreign Legion (Hologramme, 1986); Exterieur Nuit, on the blind (Editions Nathan/Actes Sud, 1998); Trop de Peines, Femmes en Prison (Albin Michel, 2000) and Too Much Time, Women in Prison (Phaidon, 2000), a ten-year project that remains the definitive photographic reference on female incarceration to date; Sentinelles de l’Ombre, (Le Seuil), four years on the devastation of landmines in Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Kosovo, and Afghanistan; A Contre Coup (with Annette Lucas), fifteen portraits of French women who have survived abuse (Xavier Barral); Haiti (Actes Sud); and Badate, the immigration phenomenon of Ukrainian women who become caregivers for Italian elderly (Silvana Editoriale, Milan). In 2010, with Jane Evelyn Atwood #125 (Actes Sud), she joined the prestigious collection of Photo Poche Monographs. In 2011, Xavier Barral re-edits her first story about Parisian prostitutes in Rue Des Lombards. A series of conversations with Jane Evelyn Atwood and Christine Delory-Momberger is published by André Frere Editions in the collection, Juste Entre Nous, in 2015. In 2018, Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille, France, publishes Pigalle People, a 1978-1979 documentary work never before shown. Pigalle, the infamous red-light district in Paris, frequented by transexuals and other regulars, is a neighborhood that has since been totally gentrified. The text, personal and by the photographer, is in English and French in the same edition. This work was exhibited in July, 2018, as part of the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France.

Jane Evelyn Atwood is the recipient of many prestigious international awards, including the first W. Eugene Smith Award, 1980; a World Press Foundation Prize, Amsterdam, 1987; the Grand Prix Paris Match du Photojournalisme and the Grand Prix du Portfolio de la Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia (SCAM), 1990; the Ernst Haas Award, 1994; the Oskar Barnack Prize, Leica Camera, 1997; and an Alfred Eisenstaedt Award, 1998. En 2005, she was given the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College, U.S.A. Jane Evelyn Atwood has exhibited internationally and her photos are in public and private collections. In 2012 she had her first retrospective at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France, and at the Botanique, in Brussels, Belgium, in 2013 – 2014, and the Imagerie in Lannion, Brittany, France.