21 Facts About Sonya Noskowiak

Sonya Noskowiak is considered an important figure in one of the great photographic movements of the twentieth century.

In 1936, Sonya Noskowiak was awarded a prize at the annual exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists.

Ten years before her death, Sonya Noskowiak's work was included in a WPA exhibition at the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California.

Sonya Noskowiak's father was a landscape gardener who instilled in her an awareness of the land that would later become evident in her photography.

Interested in photography from an early age, in 1925, at age 25, Sonya Noskowiak became a receptionist in Johan Hagemeyer's photographic studio in Los Angeles County.

In early April 1929, Sonya Noskowiak met photographer Edward Weston at a party, and the two began a relationship immediately; she eventually became his model, muse, pupil, and assistant.

Sonya Noskowiak moved to San Francisco and opened a portrait studio that year on Union Street.

Sonya Noskowiak engaged in commercial work and commissions to make a living.

Sonya Noskowiak photographed many prominent figures such as painter Jean Charlot, dancer Martha Graham, composer Edgard Varese, teenage violinist Isaac Stern, and writers Langston Hughes and John Steinbeck.

Sonya Noskowiak continued commercial photography up until the 1960s, photographing images for manufactures of lamps and stoves, as well as for architects.

Sonya Noskowiak primarily focused on landscapes and portraits between the 1930s and 1940s.

Sonya Noskowiak embraced straight photography and used it as a tool to give newer meaning to her photographs.

Sonya Noskowiak emphasized the forms, patterns, and textures of her subject, to enrich the documentation of it.

Sonya Noskowiak often composed her photographs to intersect her subjects, which gave a more dynamic feel to her photographs.

Sonya Noskowiak utilized the same technique of straight photography in her pictorial portraits and commercial works.

In 1965, Sonya Noskowiak was diagnosed with bone cancer, and she ended her photographic work.

Sonya Noskowiak lived another ten years before passing away on April 28,1975, in Greenbrae, California.

In recent years, Sonya Noskowiak's work has been included in group shows at the Weston Gallery, the Oakland Museum in California, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

In 2011, thirty-six years after her death, Sonya Noskowiak shared an exhibition with Brett Weston at the Phoenix Art Museum.

In 2015, eight of Sonya Noskowiak's works were on view at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania.

Sonya Noskowiak's archives, including 494 prints, hundreds of negatives, and many letters to Edward Weston, are housed at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona.