Dora Somosi

By Her Side, 2022 - 2024

Understory, In Blue, Solo Exhibition, Sarah Shepard Gallery, Larkspur, CA, January 16 - March 1, 2025

Selection of prints from “By Her Side” exhibited in “Paperwork” at Klompching Gallery April 5 - May 27, 2023

Prints available in 26 x 18 and 26 x 38, Edition of 5 + 2AP, Artist book publication, 2024 and 16 x 12 prints.

For the project, By Her Side, Dora Somosi has been visiting the homes/studios of influential historical female artists and thinkers. She creates a photographic blueprint, of a tree that was witness—through its proximity—to the chosen women’s legacy. The selected women all have deep relationships to nature and the landscape. They use their expertise or pioneering spirit for education and/or environmental appreciation. Visiting the sites where these women lived and worked stemmed from hikes with the artist’s daughter.  It is a performative act that calls upon instinctive photographing to both connect and memorialize.

Edna St Vincent Millay

Wilma Dykeman

Edith Wharton

Imogen Cunningham

Ruth Asawa

Edith Heath

Anna Halprin

Etal Adnan

Dorothea Lange

Ana Mendietta

Toni Morrison

Georgia O’Keeffe

Agnes Martin

Mabel Dodge Luhan

Louisa May Alcott

Emily Dickinson

Anni Albers

Helen Frankenthaler

Alma Thomas

Lee Krasner

Marion Kruger Coffin

Louise Bourgeois

Nancy Holt

Rachel Machado Phillips Levy

Josephine Clifford McCracken

I am visiting the homes/studios of departed female artists and thinkers whose practices are rooted in America, and whose work has been influential to my work, and that of so many. For this work, I create a photographic blueprint of a tree that was witness, through its proximity, to the selected women’s legacy. The women all have deep relationships to the landscape. They use their expertise or pioneering spirit for education, inquiry, land conservation, preservation and/or appreciation. Visiting the sites is a performative act that calls upon innate photographic abilities to both connect and memorialize. This is a chosen history and a personal education.

Pictured from top (left to right): Imogen Cunningham, Oakland, CA (Magnolia Tree); Edith Heath, Sausalito, CA, (Eucalyptus) Josephine Clifford McCracken, Santa Cruz Mountains, CA (Redwood); Edith Wharton, Lenox, MA, (Sugar Maple); Wilma Dykeman, Asheville, NC, (White Oak); Agnes Martin, Taos, New Mexico, (Crab Apple); Helen Frankenthaler, New York, NY, (London Plane); Emily Dickinson, Amherst, MA, (Oak); Alma Thomas, Washington DC, (Crepe Myrtle): Nancy Holt, Arlington, VA (Cherry); Dorothea Lange, Berkeley Hills, CA (American Sycamore); Anna Halprin, Kentfield, CA (Canyon Oak); Anni Albers, Orange, CT, (Northern Red Oak); Toni Morrison, Nyack, New York (Red Maple); Lee Krasner, Springs, Long Island, New York (White Oak) ; Ruth Asawa, Noe Valley, CA (Japanese Black Pine); Etal Adnan Sausalito, CA, (Flame); Louise Bourgeoise New York, NY, (Silver Maple); Mabel Dodge Luhan Taos, NM, (Cotonwood); .Marion Kruger Coffin, Gibraltar, Delaware (Southern Magnolia)

Not pictured: ; Rachel Machado Phillips Levy, Monticello, VA, (Mulberry Tree).