Elinor Carucci

Born 1971 in Jerusalem, Elinor Carucci graduated in 1995 from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design with a degree in photography, and moved to New York that same year. Her work has been included in many solo and group exhibitions worldwide, solo shows include: Edwynn Houk gallery, Fifty One Fine Art Gallery, FoMU, and Gagosian Gallery, London among others. Group shows include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and The Photographers’ Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

Her photographs are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, among others and her work appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Details, New York Magazine, W, Aperture, ARTnews and many more publications.

She was awarded the ICP Infinity Award in 2001, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and NYFA in 2010. Carucci has published four monographs to date, Closer, Chronicle Books 2002, and Diary of a Dancer, SteidlMack 2005, and MOTHER, Prestel 2013. In fall of 2019 Monacelli Press/Phaidon published her fourth monograph, Midlife.

Carucci teaches at the graduate program of Photography and Lens-Based Art at School of Visual Arts.

Her COVID series will be exhibited as a solo show in the gallery of the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, in September 2020.

Edwynn Houk Gallery is pleased to present Elinor Carucci’s latest body of work, Midlife

In this new series spanning the past eight years, Carucci continues to explore themes of identity, relationships, and the passage of time by documenting herself and her family in their daily lives, a practice that has long been central to her work. Through these deeply personal photographs—which range from moments of intimacy and emotionally charged scenes, to the most mundane tasks of running a household—the artist’s vulnerability and total honesty to her audience invite viewers to recognize their own experiences in hers.

Carucci’s images have always been distinguished by an ability to illustrate the universality of human emotions by zeroing in on carefully composed scenes of domesticity. Yet, Midlife feels particularly compelling because it chooses as its subject matter a period in life that is rarely acknowledged, much less celebrated. Youthful beauty and the advent of motherhood are familiar motifs in the history of art, but the narrative of women’s lives seems to stop there. More than simply shining a light on the midlife years, Carucci presents an intensive and tender investigation into the effects of time on her body, her self-identity in all its complexity, and her relationships with her family members as they each move through new phases of their lives. Midlife is also the subject of an acclaimed monograph published by The Monacelli Press.

The Midlife viewing room will be live from September 10th through October 22nd, 2020 on the newly redesigned Edwynn Houk Gallery website. An artist talk about Carucci’s career and a virtual reception for the exhibition will be hosted by the School of Visual Arts on Thursday, September 10th from 6:30 to 8:00 PM. Please visit to register for the event, which will be held on Zoom.