Books by Women Photographers from Perpich Library

March 17, 2026

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the library is highlighting books featuring some of the beautiful work done by women photographers.

“As in many fields of art history, the work of women photographers has often been overlooked, and few of their names are now widely recognized. However, women were closely involved in all major photography movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, and have used the camera as an extraordinary tool for emancipation and experimentation. These are artists who never stopped documenting, questioning and transforming the world, breaking down social boundaries, challenging gender roles and expressing their imagination and sexuality.” from A World History of Women Photographers

All items on this list are available at the Perpich library. Click on titles for more information.

1. Berenice Abbott: Paris Portraits 1925–1930 edited by Ron Kurtz and Hank O’Neal
Abbott began her photographic career in Paris in 1925, taking portraits of some the most celebrated artists and writers of the day, including Marie Laurencin, Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim, Coco Chanel, Max Ernst, André Gide, Philippe Soupault, and James Joyce. Within a year her work was exhibited and acclaimed. Paris Portraits 1925–1930 features the results of Abbott’s earliest photographic project and illustrates the philosophy of all her subsequent work. For this landmark book, 115 portraits of 83 subjects have been scanned from the original glass negatives, which have been printed in full.

2. Breathing Space: Iranian Women Photographers edited by Anahita Ghabaian Etehadieh
Showcases the work of twenty-three women photographers from Iran and their diverse approaches to their craft. Exploring a range of photographic styles and genres, they record the past and present upheavals of their homeland as well as tackling subjects such as the nature of memory, the tension between tradition and modernity, and the scars of conflict and loss. Whether documentary or conceptual, these images have global resonance and speak of the power of women to shape the world.

3. Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph essay by Zadie Smith; interview by Arthur Jafa
Deana Lawson is one of the most intriguing photographers of her generation. Over the last ten years, she has created a visionary language to describe identities through intimate portraiture and striking accounts of ceremonies and rituals. Using medium- and large-format cameras, Lawson works with models she meets in the United States and on travels in the Caribbean and Africa to construct arresting, highly structured, and deliberately theatrical scenes animated by an exquisite range of color and attention to surprising details. Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph features forty beautifully reproduced photographs, an essay by the acclaimed writer Zadie Smith, and an expansive conversation with the filmmaker Arthur Jafa.

4. Francesca Woodman: Alternate Stories by Francesca Woodman and Chris Kraus
Presents more than 40 vintage photographs by the pioneering American photographer Francesca Woodman (1958–81), many of which have never before been seen. These photographs span the creative arc of the artist’s life, focusing on the varied thought processes, interests and influences that inspired her work. Clustered thematically, Francesca Woodman: Alternate Stories highlights previously unexplored relational contexts, drawing deeply on Woodman’s formative years in Providence, Rhode Island, and Italy, and featuring previously unpublished photographs and archival materials.

5. Girl Pictures by Justine Kurland; story by Rebecca Bengal
The North American frontier is an enduring symbol of romance, rebellion, escape, and freedom. At the same time, it’s a profoundly masculine myth—cowboys, outlaws, Beat poets. Photographer Justine Kurland reclaimed this space in her now-iconic series of images of teenage girls, taken between 1997 and 2002 on the road in the American wilderness. “I staged the girls as a standing army of teenaged runaways in resistance to patriarchal ideals,” says Kurland. She portrays the girls as fearless and free, tender and fierce.

6. Graciela Iturbide: On Dreams, Symbols, and Imagination by Graciela Iturbide; edited by Alfonso Morales Carrillo and Mauricio Maillé
In this volume of The Photography Workshop Series, Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide—known for her portraits and landscapes imbued with poetic ambiguity and documentary truth—explores photographing in ways that employ a deeply personal vision, while also reflecting subjects’ rich cultural backgrounds.

7. Marilyn Nance: Last Day in Lagos by Marilyn Nance; edited by Oluremi C. Onabanjo
From January 15 to February 12, 1977, more than 15,000 artists, intellectuals and performers from 55 nations worldwide gathered in Lagos, Nigeria, for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, also known as FESTAC’77. While serving as the photographer for the US contingent of the North American delegation, Brooklyn-based photographer Marilyn Nance made more than 1,500 images throughout the course of the festival―one of the most comprehensive photographic accounts of FESTAC’77. Drawing from Nance’s extensive archive, most of which has never before been published, Last Day in Lagos chronicles the exuberant intensity and sociopolitical significance of this extraordinary event.

8. On Contested Terrain by An-My Lê & Dan Leers et al.
Drawing, in part, from her own experiences of the Vietnam War, An-My Lê has created a body of work committed to expanding and complicating our understanding of the activities and motivations behind conflict and war. Throughout her thirty-year career, Lê has photographed noncombatant roles of active-duty service members, often on the sites of former battlefields, including those reserved for training or the reenactment of war, and those created as film sets.

9. Women Street Photographers edited by Gulnara Samoilova
Traditionally a male-dominated field, street photography is increasingly becoming the domain of women. This fantastic collection of images reflects that shift, showcasing 100 contemporary women street photographers working around the world today, accompanied by personal statements about their work.

10. A World History of Women Photographers edited by Luce Lebart and Marie Robert
Offers an illustrated showcase of the work of 300 women photographers from all over the world, from the invention of the medium to the dawn of the 21st century. To capture the diversity of this global body of work, Luce Lebart and Marie Robert have invited 160 international women writers to contribute to this volume, which is a illustrated manifesto as well as an invaluable work of reference.

All items on this list are available at the Perpich Library.

Title descriptions are provided by Amazon and/or the publisher.