Linda Wolf

Linda Wolf (born March 17, 1950) is an American-born photographer and writer, one of the first women rock and roll photographers, and founder of the nonprofit organization, Teen Talking Circles (The Daughters Sisters Project). In addition to her rock and roll and editorial work, Wolf has also made fine art photography, with an emphasis on women and street photography.

In 1981, she co-founded Women in Photography International,^[1] which is archived in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Peter E. Palmquist Collection.^[2][3] Wolf co-curated the 2017 Women in Photography Exhibit at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art ^[4][5]

Her photographs are in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.^[6]

Life and work

Wolf began her photography career in 1969 ^[7] as a teenager working with Fanny,^[8] one of the first all-girl rock bands to be signed by a major label, and became an official photographer for the Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour (1970).^[9] On September 11, 2015, she repeated her role as official photographer for the Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tribute/Reunion Concert with the Tedeschi Trucks Band.^[10]

From 1970-1975, she lived and studied in Provence, France, attending the Institute of American Universities, and L'Ecole Experimental Photographic.^[11] Her early photographic work in France focused on people and village life in the Vaucluse Mountains.^[12] Upon returning to the US, Wolf taught photography through the University of California at Los Angeles Extension, worked as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Citywide Mural Project^[13]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wolf created a public art project of bus bench murals consisting of photos of ordinary people sitting on bus benches. The photographs were placed on the sides of buses and the back of bus benches in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Oakland, CA, and Arles, France. One of the bus benches sits in the courtyard of Musée Réattu as part of their permanent collection, in Arles France.^[14] The benches were conceived as a response to the dehumanizing effects of advertising,^[15][16][17] and were exhibited in numerous venues including the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Rencontres International Festival of Photography in Arles, France.^[18] She then developed the project, "L.A. Welcomes the World", a series of large-scale multicultural portraits of people presented on billboards throughout Los Angeles, for the 1984 Summer Olympics.^[19] In 1984, she participated with one hundred international photographers in the book project, 24 Hours in the Life of Los Angeles,^[20] and was the featured guest on an episode of the KNBC/PBS series, Talk About Pictures.

On September 11, 2015, Wolf joined the Tedeschi Trucks Band & Friends plus alumni from the iconic 1970 Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen Tour, as the official photographer and background singer in the Space Choir for a tribute concert to honor Cocker.^[10] Participating alumni included Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, Chris Stainton, Pamela Polland and others including Wolf.^[21][22][5]

Wolf went on to author four books featuring her photography: Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen Memory Book;^[23][22] Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun: Young Women and Mentors on the Transition to Womanhood;^[24] Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century; Stories from a New Generation of Activists;^[25] and Speaking and Listening From the Heart, The Art of Facilitating Teen Talking Circles^[26] and a documentary, I am a Full Woman, of women around the world.^[27][28]

Wolf is the founder and executive director of Teen Talking Circles (TTC), and through TTC is a pioneer in the revival of the modern Talking Circle in the therapeutic movement. In 2006, through Teen Talking Circles, she became the recipient of a seven-year AnJeL Fund Grant from the Rudolph Steiner Foundation.^[29]

References