Press

Ann Zane Shanks: Behind the Lens will open at the New York State Museum May 14th, showcasing Shanks’ works, which span her 50-year career as an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, producer, director and author.

The retrospective exhibition, in the Museum’s Exhibition Hall, includes about 69 photographic prints, as well as many of the magazines and books in which they first appeared. Previously seen at the New-York Historical Society, the exhibition covers several themes of Shanks’ work from the 1950s through the present - life in America, children, travel and celebrities. Her first film, Central Park (1970), an independent short acquired by Columbia Pictures, also will be shown continuously in the gallery.

Open through February 26, 2006, the exhibition is organized by guest curator Bonnie Yochelson. Her previous exhibitions include Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York, 1935-1939 (Museum of the City of New York, 1998), which was at the State Museum November 2000 through April 2001.

A current resident of Sheffield, Mass. and native of Brooklyn, Shanks began her photography career in 1950 after meeting and being influenced by Desire Berman, a photographer and white South African anti-apartheid activist who was studying with Berenice Abbott at the New School of Social Research in New York. Shanks studied photography at the Photo League in New York, where she worked with a group of socially conscious photographers, who were among the leading photographers of the day. By 1955 her documentation of the Third Avenue elevated train earned her a solo exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.

Since then her work has been exhibited in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography. Her photographs also have appeared in publications such as Time, Woman’s Day, Esquire, Fortune and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

In addition to her many celebrity photographs (Bette Davis, Angelica Huston, Catherine Deneuve, James Brown, Judy Garland), Shanks’ primary focus was always in documenting people involved in the political and social issues of the time, as she traveled throughout the world, often on assignment. Viewers are frequently surprised to find a sharp sense of humor reflected in her work.

Her photos also appear in a recycling book she wrote for young adults entitled About Garbage and Stuff (Viking Press, 1973). Subsequent books have included Old is What You Get (Viking Press, 1976) and Busted Lives: Dialogues with Kids in Jail (Delacorte Press, 1982).

During the 1970s Shanks began another career as a film and television producer-director, winning 27 film festival awards and two Emmy nominations. In the 1980s she branched out into theatre, producing and directing on and off Broadway plays based on the works of Lillian Hellman and S. J. Perelman.

She also has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, UCLA and the Beijing Academy of Film and Television. Most recently, she was at the Colloquium for Women of Indiana University, along with former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Shanks will participate in a free “Meet the Artist” program at the State Museum on Saturday, May 14th at 2 p.m. in the Museum Theater. She will talk about her multi-faceted career and will welcome questions from the audience. Shanks also will sign copies of her recently published book, Ann Zane Shanks - Photographs, which will be available in the Museum Shop.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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