HOLLY LYNTON was born in Boulder, Colorado and was raised both there and in New York City. Her photographs focus on understanding rural communities in the United States through their agricultural history, current industry, and ritual. The images she creates underscore the importance of having unmediated experiences with the natural world. In a new project, she examines the intersection of faith, history, and the environment.
Lynton received a BA in Psychology in 1994 from Yale University, where she also studied photography. She received an MFA in Photography from Bard College in 2000. Lynton's photographs have been exhibited internationally and can be found in the collections of the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, The Fidelity Collection, and the Yale University Art Gallery, where they will be on view during the 2021 exhibition On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale. An exhibition of work will also be shown at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in 2022.
Lynton has received numerous awards and grants, including The Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, the Syngenta Photography Award, and an Artist Resource Trust Grant. She has been a finalist for the Maud Morgan Prize, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award. Yale University recently awarded her a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition for her series on Methodist Camp Meetings in South Carolina. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Miami Herald, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Harvard Design Magazine, Southern Cultures Journal, Preview Massachusetts, Oxford American, ARTnews, Gravy (Southern Foodways Alliance) and The Boston Globe.
Lynton has been a Visiting Lecturer at Amherst College in Massachusetts and the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts in Paros, Greece, and a Mentor to MFA students at the New Hampshire Institute of the Arts. A monograph of Bare Handed is scheduled for publication in the Fall 2021.