Born in Warsaw, Poland
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California
EDUCATION
2015 MFA Photography, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
2013 BFA Photography, summa cum laude, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
AWARDS/ GRANTS
2015 Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography, Yale University
2014 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture,
Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation
2014 Alice Kimball English Traveling Fellowship, Yale University
2014 PDN’s 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch
2013 World Press Photo, Third Prize: Observed Portraits
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Virgin Soap, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles (upcoming)
2020 I am a woman and I feast on memory, Ogrodowa 8, Lodz, Poland
2019 Unsex me here, Make Room, Los Angeles
2018 Some women can take their eyes out, AALA Gallery, Los Angeles
2017 You are now entering the human heart, Instytut Fotografii Fort, Warsaw, Poland
2016 I am a woman and I feast on memory, Leica 6×7 Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2015 Rodeo Girls, Amerikahaus, Munich, Germany
2014 American Girls, Johnson Hall Rotunda Gallery, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
2013 American Girls, Foley Gallery, New York, NY
2013 American Girls, Maison de la Photographie, Lille, France
2012 American Girls, Galerie Claude Samuel, Paris, France
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Mirror, Mirror, Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York
2021 The Makeable Mind, Noorderlicht Photography Festival, Groningen, The Netherlands
2020 PAPA RAGAZZE, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles
2020 The Creator Has A Master Plan, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles,
2020 Athens Photography Festival, Athens, Greece
2020 About Face, curated by Ali Subotnick, Gallery Platform LA
2020 We Felt Such Strength That We Wanted to Be Gentle, Make Room on Gallery Platform LA
2019 212 Photography Festival, Istanbul, Turkey
2019 American Truth, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York
2019 Criminalize This! The Social Policing of Gender and the Criminalization of Queerness, Amos Eno, New York
2018 Out of Character: Self-Imaging through Narrative, USC Roski, IFT Gallery, Los Angeles
2018 Engaged, Active, Aware: Women’s Perspectives Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
2018 This Is Not Here, Re: Art Show, Brooklyn, New York
2018 By The Lights of Their Eyes, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles
2018 A Body of Her Own, MAKE ROOM, Los Angeles
2017 The Industry Show, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, Canada
2017 POWER, Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
2017 FOAM TALENT, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, London
2017 FOAM TALENT, Red Hook Labs, New York, NY
2016 FOAM TALENT, Unseen Photography Festival, Amsterdam
2016 Single Shot, Instytut Fotografii Fort, Warsaw, Poland
2016 I am a woman and I cast no shadow, 31st International Festival of Photography and Fashion in Hyeres, France
2016 New Genealogies: 2016-, Green Hall Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
2015 Lovely Dark, Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2015 Lovely Dark, Danziger Gallery, New York
2015 Emerging, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles
2015 Views, Landscapes in Polish Photography, Art_Inkubator, Lodz, Poland
2015 Lishui Photography Festival, Lishui, China
2014 Identification, Warsaw Photo Days, Nowe Miejsce, Warsaw, Poland
2014 Masters of Polish Photography, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
2014 Yale MFA 2015, Yale School of Art, Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
2013 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, London
2013 Photography Now, Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY
2013 ICP Triennial, Self-Published section, New York
2013 THE FENCE at Photoville, Brooklyn
2013 THE FENCE at Flash Forward Festival, Boston
2013 Exploitation, Glorification, Objectification, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago
2013 Hey, Hot Shot!, Jen Bekman Gallery, New York
2012 Getxo Photo, Bilbao, Spain
2012 THE FENCE Photoville, Brooklyn
2010 Condition X, School of Visual Arts Westside Gallery, New York
2009 SVA Summer Residency Group Show, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York
BOOKS
2015 I am a woman and I feast on memory, edition of 500, self-published
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2018 NYLON, Ilona Szwarc, 10 page portfolio and interview by Wenjia Sheng, China
2017 VICE PHOTO ISSUE, Ilona Szwarc on Gillian Wearing, New York
2017 doc! photo magazine vol. 41, I know what your misfortune is, 12 page portfolio, Warsaw, Poland
2016 FOAM MAGAZINE #45: TALENT, 10 page portfolio and text by Max Houghton, Amsterdam
2016 Mossless 4: Public/Private/Portait, published in collaboration with Charlotte Cotton and International Center of Photography, New York
2016 Dear Dave. edited by Stephen Frailey, New York
2015 Lovely Dark, 2015 Yale MFA Photography (catalog), Yale University, New Haven
2014 American Short Stories: An American in America, 30 page portfolio and interview by David Rosenberg, S Magazine, Germany
2014 High Tails, Capricious, New York
2014 Mossless: Issue Three (2003-2013), Mossless, New York
2013 Ilona Szwarc, BLINK, Issue 22, 10 page portfolio and interview by Kim Aram
2013 GetxoPhoto: In Praise of Childhood, curated by Frank Kalero, exhibition catalog
2011 MATTE Magazine: Ilona Szwarc, Issue 6, published by Matthew Leifheit New York
SELECTED PRESS
Jacqui Palumbo, Sex Women Artists Furthering Cindy Sherman’s Vision, Artsy
Alina Cohen 8 Artists Using Silicone to Create Strange, Radical Artworks, Artsy
Hilton Als, The Freedom of Young Photographers, The New Yorker
Ashley McNeils, The Horror of Flesh, The Reservoir
Sharsten Plenge, Last Look: Lovely Dark, WOAH, Curate LA, Los Angeles
Jon Feinstein, New Photobook: Photographer Explores Assimilation Through Grotesque Beauty Tutorials, Humble Arts Foundation Blog
Efrem Zelony-Mindell, Ilona Szwarc: I am a woman and I feast on memory, L’oeil de la Photographie
Coralie Kraft, I am a woman and I feast on memory, Lens Culture
Ada Banaszak, Emancypacja Sobowtorow, Notes na 6 Tygodni, Warsaw, Poland
Julie Bosman, The Cowgirl Way, The New York Times Magazine, USA
Lucy Davies, Rhinestone Cowgirls: the girls getting into rodeo, The Telegraph Magazine, UK
Ilona Szwarc: Lonesome Doves, National Geographic, Washington, DC
Laura Millar, Rodeo Girls, MARIE CLAIRE, UK
Katarzyna Swiezak, Na obraz I podobienstwo, Wysokie Obcasy, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
Jacek Tomczuk, Opisane Swiatlem: Zapozuj Mi Swiecie, Twoj Styl, Poland
Sophie de Rosee, Me and my girl, The Telegraph Magazine, London, UK
Alicia Lee, Ilona Szwarc: Better Version of Her, SURFACE, China
Out of the Box: Yale MFA Students, New York Magazine
Maria Lokke, Ilona Szwarc’s American Girls, The New Yorker Photo Booth
Caroline Linton, American Girls: Photographs Offer Vision Into American Girlhood, Newsweek The Daily Beast
Hye Seong Tae, Ilona Szwarc, Photography Monthly, Seoul, South Korea,
Fascinating Look At Girls With Their Dolls From Award-Winning Photographer, Huffington Post UK
Matthew Leifheit MATTE Magazine: Ilona Szwarc for CCNY blog, essay by Matthew Leifheit
David Rosenberg, Looking at American Girls With Their American Girls, Slate Behold
Olivia Fleming, Intimate portraits reveal fascinating insight into the extraordinary American Girl phenomenon, Daily Mail
Lori Fredrickson, ”Girls & Dolls ”, Popular Photography
Kerri MacDonald, A Mirror on Growing Up in America, The New York Times Lens Blog
Seeing Double: Portraits of girls and their American Girl dolls, MSNBC Today.com
Emma Gray, Ilona Szwarc’s “American Girls” Explores The Meaning of Girlhood in the US, Huffington Post
COLLECTIONS
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Museum of Modern Art (Library), New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art (Library), Philadelphia
Robert B. Hass Family Arts Library, Yale University Library, New Haven
FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock
Joy of Giving Something Foundation, New York
Cathy Kaplan Collection, New York
Private Collections
ARTIST TALKS
Yale University, Alumni Panel, Graduate Photography Department, New Haven, Conn.
University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Gender Studies, Los Angeles, California
University of Texas at Austin, Department of Art and Art History, Austin, Texas
School of Visual Arts, Masters in Digital Photography, i3 Lecture Series, New York, New York
School of Visual Arts, New York, New York
Pratt Institute, New York, New York
School of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
International Center of Photography, New York, New York
International Festival of Photography and Fashion, Hyeres, France
World Press Photo Academy, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Joop Swart Masterclass, Amsterdam, Netherlands
SELECTED EDITORIAL CLIENTS
The New York Times Magazine, TIME, The New Yorker, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, New York Magazine, OUT Magazine, Leica S Magazine, Financial Times Weekend Magazine, Marie Claire, Elle, The Telegraph Magazine, National Geographic, Surface, Topic.com
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California
EDUCATION
2015 MFA Photography, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
2013 BFA Photography, summa cum laude, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
AWARDS/ GRANTS
2015 Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography, Yale University
2014 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture,
Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation
2014 Alice Kimball English Traveling Fellowship, Yale University
2014 PDN’s 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch
2013 World Press Photo, Third Prize: Observed Portraits
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Virgin Soap, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles (upcoming)
2020 I am a woman and I feast on memory, Ogrodowa 8, Lodz, Poland
2019 Unsex me here, Make Room, Los Angeles
2018 Some women can take their eyes out, AALA Gallery, Los Angeles
2017 You are now entering the human heart, Instytut Fotografii Fort, Warsaw, Poland
2016 I am a woman and I feast on memory, Leica 6×7 Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2015 Rodeo Girls, Amerikahaus, Munich, Germany
2014 American Girls, Johnson Hall Rotunda Gallery, Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
2013 American Girls, Foley Gallery, New York, NY
2013 American Girls, Maison de la Photographie, Lille, France
2012 American Girls, Galerie Claude Samuel, Paris, France
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Mirror, Mirror, Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York
2021 The Makeable Mind, Noorderlicht Photography Festival, Groningen, The Netherlands
2020 PAPA RAGAZZE, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles
2020 The Creator Has A Master Plan, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles,
2020 Athens Photography Festival, Athens, Greece
2020 About Face, curated by Ali Subotnick, Gallery Platform LA
2020 We Felt Such Strength That We Wanted to Be Gentle, Make Room on Gallery Platform LA
2019 212 Photography Festival, Istanbul, Turkey
2019 American Truth, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York
2019 Criminalize This! The Social Policing of Gender and the Criminalization of Queerness, Amos Eno, New York
2018 Out of Character: Self-Imaging through Narrative, USC Roski, IFT Gallery, Los Angeles
2018 Engaged, Active, Aware: Women’s Perspectives Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
2018 This Is Not Here, Re: Art Show, Brooklyn, New York
2018 By The Lights of Their Eyes, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles
2018 A Body of Her Own, MAKE ROOM, Los Angeles
2017 The Industry Show, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, Canada
2017 POWER, Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
2017 FOAM TALENT, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, London
2017 FOAM TALENT, Red Hook Labs, New York, NY
2016 FOAM TALENT, Unseen Photography Festival, Amsterdam
2016 Single Shot, Instytut Fotografii Fort, Warsaw, Poland
2016 I am a woman and I cast no shadow, 31st International Festival of Photography and Fashion in Hyeres, France
2016 New Genealogies: 2016-, Green Hall Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
2015 Lovely Dark, Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2015 Lovely Dark, Danziger Gallery, New York
2015 Emerging, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles
2015 Views, Landscapes in Polish Photography, Art_Inkubator, Lodz, Poland
2015 Lishui Photography Festival, Lishui, China
2014 Identification, Warsaw Photo Days, Nowe Miejsce, Warsaw, Poland
2014 Masters of Polish Photography, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
2014 Yale MFA 2015, Yale School of Art, Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
2013 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, London
2013 Photography Now, Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY
2013 ICP Triennial, Self-Published section, New York
2013 THE FENCE at Photoville, Brooklyn
2013 THE FENCE at Flash Forward Festival, Boston
2013 Exploitation, Glorification, Objectification, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago
2013 Hey, Hot Shot!, Jen Bekman Gallery, New York
2012 Getxo Photo, Bilbao, Spain
2012 THE FENCE Photoville, Brooklyn
2010 Condition X, School of Visual Arts Westside Gallery, New York
2009 SVA Summer Residency Group Show, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York
BOOKS
2015 I am a woman and I feast on memory, edition of 500, self-published
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2018 NYLON, Ilona Szwarc, 10 page portfolio and interview by Wenjia Sheng, China
2017 VICE PHOTO ISSUE, Ilona Szwarc on Gillian Wearing, New York
2017 doc! photo magazine vol. 41, I know what your misfortune is, 12 page portfolio, Warsaw, Poland
2016 FOAM MAGAZINE #45: TALENT, 10 page portfolio and text by Max Houghton, Amsterdam
2016 Mossless 4: Public/Private/Portait, published in collaboration with Charlotte Cotton and International Center of Photography, New York
2016 Dear Dave. edited by Stephen Frailey, New York
2015 Lovely Dark, 2015 Yale MFA Photography (catalog), Yale University, New Haven
2014 American Short Stories: An American in America, 30 page portfolio and interview by David Rosenberg, S Magazine, Germany
2014 High Tails, Capricious, New York
2014 Mossless: Issue Three (2003-2013), Mossless, New York
2013 Ilona Szwarc, BLINK, Issue 22, 10 page portfolio and interview by Kim Aram
2013 GetxoPhoto: In Praise of Childhood, curated by Frank Kalero, exhibition catalog
2011 MATTE Magazine: Ilona Szwarc, Issue 6, published by Matthew Leifheit New York
SELECTED PRESS
Jacqui Palumbo, Sex Women Artists Furthering Cindy Sherman’s Vision, Artsy
Alina Cohen 8 Artists Using Silicone to Create Strange, Radical Artworks, Artsy
Hilton Als, The Freedom of Young Photographers, The New Yorker
Ashley McNeils, The Horror of Flesh, The Reservoir
Sharsten Plenge, Last Look: Lovely Dark, WOAH, Curate LA, Los Angeles
Jon Feinstein, New Photobook: Photographer Explores Assimilation Through Grotesque Beauty Tutorials, Humble Arts Foundation Blog
Efrem Zelony-Mindell, Ilona Szwarc: I am a woman and I feast on memory, L’oeil de la Photographie
Coralie Kraft, I am a woman and I feast on memory, Lens Culture
Ada Banaszak, Emancypacja Sobowtorow, Notes na 6 Tygodni, Warsaw, Poland
Julie Bosman, The Cowgirl Way, The New York Times Magazine, USA
Lucy Davies, Rhinestone Cowgirls: the girls getting into rodeo, The Telegraph Magazine, UK
Ilona Szwarc: Lonesome Doves, National Geographic, Washington, DC
Laura Millar, Rodeo Girls, MARIE CLAIRE, UK
Katarzyna Swiezak, Na obraz I podobienstwo, Wysokie Obcasy, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
Jacek Tomczuk, Opisane Swiatlem: Zapozuj Mi Swiecie, Twoj Styl, Poland
Sophie de Rosee, Me and my girl, The Telegraph Magazine, London, UK
Alicia Lee, Ilona Szwarc: Better Version of Her, SURFACE, China
Out of the Box: Yale MFA Students, New York Magazine
Maria Lokke, Ilona Szwarc’s American Girls, The New Yorker Photo Booth
Caroline Linton, American Girls: Photographs Offer Vision Into American Girlhood, Newsweek The Daily Beast
Hye Seong Tae, Ilona Szwarc, Photography Monthly, Seoul, South Korea,
Fascinating Look At Girls With Their Dolls From Award-Winning Photographer, Huffington Post UK
Matthew Leifheit MATTE Magazine: Ilona Szwarc for CCNY blog, essay by Matthew Leifheit
David Rosenberg, Looking at American Girls With Their American Girls, Slate Behold
Olivia Fleming, Intimate portraits reveal fascinating insight into the extraordinary American Girl phenomenon, Daily Mail
Lori Fredrickson, ”Girls & Dolls ”, Popular Photography
Kerri MacDonald, A Mirror on Growing Up in America, The New York Times Lens Blog
Seeing Double: Portraits of girls and their American Girl dolls, MSNBC Today.com
Emma Gray, Ilona Szwarc’s “American Girls” Explores The Meaning of Girlhood in the US, Huffington Post
COLLECTIONS
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Museum of Modern Art (Library), New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art (Library), Philadelphia
Robert B. Hass Family Arts Library, Yale University Library, New Haven
FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock
Joy of Giving Something Foundation, New York
Cathy Kaplan Collection, New York
Private Collections
ARTIST TALKS
Yale University, Alumni Panel, Graduate Photography Department, New Haven, Conn.
University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Gender Studies, Los Angeles, California
University of Texas at Austin, Department of Art and Art History, Austin, Texas
School of Visual Arts, Masters in Digital Photography, i3 Lecture Series, New York, New York
School of Visual Arts, New York, New York
Pratt Institute, New York, New York
School of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina
University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
International Center of Photography, New York, New York
International Festival of Photography and Fashion, Hyeres, France
World Press Photo Academy, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Joop Swart Masterclass, Amsterdam, Netherlands
SELECTED EDITORIAL CLIENTS
The New York Times Magazine, TIME, The New Yorker, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, New York Magazine, OUT Magazine, Leica S Magazine, Financial Times Weekend Magazine, Marie Claire, Elle, The Telegraph Magazine, National Geographic, Surface, Topic.com