Curriculum Materials: Amazing Animals in
Art
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Jane Tuckerman Essays: Questions: |
Jane Tuckerman
Jane Tuckerman grew up on a farm in Westport,Massachusetts, located near the ocean in the southern part ofthe state. She studied photography at the Art Institute of Boston and the Rhode Island School of Design, where she earned a master of fine arts degree. There she studied photography with well-known photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, who helped shape her ideas about photography.
Represented in museum collections across the country, Tuckerman's work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions. She has been the recipient of many fellowships and grants, including the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Grant in 1985. In 1987 she was selected to be Visiting Artist to the American Academy in Rome.
Closely related to her work as a photographer, Tuckerman has taught photography for the past 22 years at a number of institutions. One is Harvard University, where she was head of the photography department for several years and continues to teach today. She also is associate professor of photography at the Art Institute of Boston. Reflecting on her career as an artist and a teacher, Tuckerman said, "[Aaron] Siskind taught me so much about being committed to my work and to teaching. He taught me how important it is to communicate my feelings about the medium to my students and to show the medium great respect at all times, even when it's not going the way I want it to."2
With her husband, photographer Christopher James, Tuckerman traveled to India in 1985 to photograph death rituals, an experience she considers a pivotal point in her work. She also does painting and sculpture and at times integrates her photographs with these art forms, reflecting changing attitudes in recent decades regarding an artist's freedom to cross boundaries and combine mediums.
2 From a telephone interview with Bonnie Gainsley, September, 1993.
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