Kelli Connell, Betsy, Lake Ediza, 2015. Archival pigment print, edition 6 of 6. From the series Pictures for Charis. Courtesy the artist
Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell’s Pictures for Charis brings together photographs based on Connell’s (b.1974, Oklahoma City) research into the lives and relationship of writer and model Charis Wilson (1914–2009) and photographer Edward Weston (1886–1958). Originally curated by Gregory J. Harris at the
High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA); Rebecca Senf at the
Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ); and Barbara Tannenbaum at the
Cleveland Museum of Art, the
Elmhurst Art Museum’s presentation is organized by Allison Peters Quinn.
In
Pictures for Charis, Kelli Connell reimagines the photographer-to-sitter relationship through the lens of her own partnership, drawing on Wilson’s life and writings to examine power, intimacy, and creative collaboration. Accompanied by her partner, artist Betsy Odom, Connell visited the California sites where Wilson and Weston lived and worked together from 1934 to 1945, using Weston’s photographs and Wilson’s texts as a guide. Through staged reenactments and landscape photography, Connell’s contemporary images reframe questions of gender, desire, authorship, and queer partnership.
Kelli Connell, Artist’s Palette, 2015. Archival pigment print, edition 1 of 6. From the series Pictures for Charis. Courtesy the artist
Kelli Connell, Preston, 2013. Archival pigment print, edition 1 of 6. From the series Pictures for Charis. Courtesy the artist
Peters Quinn will work closely with Connell on the selection and sequencing of works, placing Connell’s photographs in conversation with Weston’s figure studies and landscapes from the same period. The presentation at Elmhurst will also include newly commissioned photographs for the museum’s McCormick House, designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe. Titled
Double Life, the commission extends Connell’s long-standing interest in the psychological dynamics of interior and exterior space, intimacy, and the construction of the self.
Allison Peters Quinn is Executive Director and Chief Curator at the Elmhurst Art Museum. During her tenure as Director of Exhibition and Residency Programs at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, she organized exhibitions and produced publications for artists including Candida Alvarez, Theaster Gates, Faheem Majeed, and Lan Tuazon. Her essays and interviews on contemporary artists’ practices have appeared in anthologies, journals, and catalogs such as The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) and Stockyard Institute: 25 Years of Art and Radical Pedagogy (DePaul Art Museum, 2021). Quinn has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago Graham School, and Columbia College Chicago. She earned a BA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MA at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College.
Gregory J. Harris is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art. At the High, he has curated over a dozen exhibitions, including a major survey of Southern photography, A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 (2023) and Mark Steinmetz: Terminus (2018). Harris was previously Assistant Curator at the DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) in Chicago, where he curated and authored catalogs for the exhibitions Liminal Infrastructure (2015) and We Shall: Photographs by Paul D’Amato (2013). He also held curatorial positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, organizing the exhibitions In the Vernacular (2010) and Of National Interest (2008).
Rebecca Senf, PhD, is Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a scholar of Ansel Adams’ work. She has curated exhibitions at CCP such as Richard Avedon: Photographer of Influence (2011); Odyssey: The Photographs of Linda Connor (2009); and Human Nature: The Photographs of Barbara Bosworth (2008). From 2000 to 2005, Senf worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she co-curated a major Ansel Adams exhibition with Karen Haas. Her publications include essays in many artist monographs, as well as Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams (2020). She earned a BA in Art History from the University of Arizona and an MA and PhD from Boston University.
Barbara Tannenbaum, PhD, is Curator of Photography and Chair of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She has curated exhibitions including Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographers (2023); Hank Willis Thomas (2014); and DIY: Photographers & Books (2012). Previously, as Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Akron Art Museum, she organized more than eighty exhibitions. Tannenbaum served as primary author, editor, and publisher for the first survey of the Akron Art Museum’s collection. In 2010, she received the Association of Midwest Museums’ Distinguished Career Award and has held research fellowships from the Henry Luce Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the Danforth Foundation.