Maura Allen

A black and white photographer for 50+ years, Maura Allen has long considered her photographic images as assets—as moments that can be deconstructed, reconstructed, layered and leveraged to build and tell stories. The focus of her work for the past 30 years has been the American West, both real and romanticized. She uses her photographs captured on location at rodeos, ranches and the roads in between as a starting point for creating work that crosses traditional art genres, including painting, printmaking, glass and sculpture. She has shown and sold her work in top galleries, museums and national art shows for 20+ years. Maura is the recipient of seven Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers in a single year. Recognized as the #1 U.S. mobile photographer (and fifth in the world) by One Eyeland, Maura’s photography pursuits span from digital to alternative, including a deep love of platinum printing and pinhole camera image capture. She teaches her creative process at Santa Fe Workshops and frequently speaks about the intersection of the American West and photography. A Northern California native, Maura earned her BA in Latin/Classical Studies at Stanford University where exposure to Eadweard Muybridge’s groundbreaking stop-motion photography informed how she sees the world in silhouette. She serves on the board of trustees of the Sigler Western Museum (Arizona), and on the board of Leica Society International (LIS) and Photolucida, the producer of Critical Mass. When not on the road, Maura lives in Abiquiu, New Mexico.