Laurie Simmons (b.1949, USA) is an internationally recognized artist. Since the 1970’s, Simmons has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, ventriloquist dummies, mannequins and people, to create images with intensely psychological subtexts. The nonlinear narratives she creates echo memories and dreams. By the early 1980s Simmons was at the forefront of a new generation of artists, predominantly women, whose use of photography began a new dialogue in contemporary art.
Her work is part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (all New York); the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC; the Hara Museum in Tokyo; and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam, among others.
In 2018-2019 Simmons’ retrospective Big Camera/Little Camera was presented at The Modern Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
In 2006 she produced and directed her first film, The Music of Regret, starring Meryl Streep, Adam Guettel and the Alvin Ailey II Dancers. The film premiered at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her narrative feature film MY ARTpremiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and the Tribeca International Film Festival in 2017.
Simmons lives and works in New York and Cornwall, Connecticut with her husband, the painter Carroll Dunham.
