Holly Lynton photographs “vanishing industries—the last sheep shearer to use hand shears, shrimpers struggling to keep their boats out, the only weir fisher folk in New England, and the final crops of cigar tobacco before the barns are dismantled for floorboards,” she explains. Born in Boulder, Colorado, she lived in New York City and London before settling in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts.
“My photography explores people’s passion for maintaining rural traditions and preserving natural resources despite the challenges of agribusiness, climate change, and technology,” Lynton says.
She will present at the Williston Northampton School campus in the Dodge Room of Reed Campus Center on April 11 at 6:30 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.
In contrast to the images of rural hardship created by WPA photographers, her collection “Bare Handed” celebrates the “spiritual conviction and resistance of the trend towards mechanization that these individuals possess. To depict heroes rather than victims, I draw inspiration from the Hudson River School, religious paintings, and iconic tales of struggle.”
Lynton received a B.A. in psychology from Yale University in 1994, and an M.F.A. in photography from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College in 2000. Lynton’s photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
She 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 M.F.A. students at the New Hampshire Institute of the Arts. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Village Voice, The Miami Herald, Photo District News, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Preview Massachusetts, Oxford American, Water ~ Stone Review, and ARTnews.
In 2016, Lynton received the Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship grant for her series Bare Handed. She has also been honored with a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship (2013), The Syngenta Photography Award (2013), and an Artist Resource Trust Grant (2011). She was also a finalist for the Maud Morgan Prize, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (2015) and the St Botolph Distinguished Artist Award, (2015).
Lynton’s work is held in private and public collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, and the Lowe Art Museum. She is represented by the Dina Mitrani Gallery in Miami.