The Life of Laura
Laura Aguilar was an American photographer (1959-2018). Aguilar, of native Californio, Mexican and Irish descent, was born in San Gabriel, California and grew up in the San Gabriel valley. After studying photography at East Los Angeles College, her photographic production was characterized by portraits of diverse communities in the Los Angeles area, self-portraits, and later, nude self-portraits in nature. Ahead of her time, Aguilar’s late 20th century and early millennium photography first expose the visibility of underrepresented and marginalized women and communities, then celebrate them.
Self-Portrait, 1983, Gelatin silver print, 8 x 10 in.
Laura Aguilar spent most of her prolific career examining her identity as a Chicana lesbian artist. Aguilar was born in San Gabriel, California in 1959 and grew up in the San Gabriel valley. Aguilar’s family is native Californio, Mexican and Irish. Her father Paul Aguilar was second generation Mexican American while Aguilar’s mother, Juanita was half Irish and at least fifth generation documented Mexican Californio native.
After studying photography at East Los Angeles College, her photographic production was characterized by portraits of diverse communities in the Los Angeles area and self-portraits, which are a representations of herself as a complex individual, Chicana, lesbian and struggling with poverty, learning disabilities and depression. Later in her career Aguilar would incorporate nude self-portraits and nude portraits of other women into her work, challenging contemporary depictions of beauty and highlighting the intimacy between the female form and nature. Ahead of her time, Aguilar’s photographs first expose the visibility of these underrepresented and marginalized women, then celebrate them. Among her most recognized series involving nude self-portraits in nature are Nature Self-Portrait (1996) Stillness (1999) Motion (1999) Center (2000-2001) and Grounded (2006-2007).
Aguilar died in 2018 at age fifty-eight, when recognition of her work was gaining momentum. Her retrospective, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell at the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park, CA was the breakout exhibition of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA: Latin American and Latino Art in LA 2017-2018 and was Aguilar’s last exhibition during her lifetime. Since her passing, she has joined the ranks of other iconic female photographers.
Recent Acquisitions
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Department, Santa Monica, CA
Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL
Cerritos College Art Gallery, Cerritos, CA
The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX
The Fralin Museum of Art at The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park, CA
Los Angeles County of Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
Rhode Island School of Art and Design Library, Providence, PI
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA
The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
The Tate Modern, Bankside, London
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle, WA
Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI
Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX
Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL
The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
Light Work Foundation, Syracuse, NY
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR
The Huntington Library, Museum and Gardens, San Marino, CA
Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas, NV
Alta Med Art Collection, Los Angeles, CA
El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College
The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Cleveland Art Museum
Carolyn Campaga Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum
No Tresspassing on KCET Artbound
Throughout its history, the natural beauty of California has inspired artists from around the world from 19th-century plein air painting of pastoral valleys and coasts to early 20th-century photography of the wilderness (embodied famously in the work of Ansel Adams) and the birth of the light and space movement in the 1960s. Today, as artists continue to engage with California’s environment, they echo and critique earlier art practices that represent nature in “The Golden State” in a particular way.
No Trespassing | Artbound | Season 9, Episode 6 | KCET