Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna (Loeb)
This exhibition is the first career survey of American photographer Rosalie “Rollie” Thorne McKenna (1918–2003). A graduate of Vassar College in 1940, McKenna worked independently for decades as a sought-after architectural and portrait photographer, making significant yet under-recognized contributions to American modernism and street photography. In 1991, McKenna chronicled her own life and legacy in the autobiographical photo book A Life in Photography. This exhibition extends her project—and its title—with a focus on creative practice as a form of labor.
Amidst New York City’s vibrant cultural scene, McKenna forged an unusual path for a woman in the 1950s toward personal and professional independence. Fascinated by people, she built a reputation as a portraitist with iconic pictures of modern writers that circulated on book covers, dust jackets, and in magazine editorials. McKenna’s architectural photography ranged from Italian Renaissance cathedrals to New York City’s modernist skyscrapers to Latin American housing complexes. Her editorial photography was published in Esquire, Fortune, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Vanity Fair, and Vogue.
McKenna’s life and career embody the complexities of privilege: As a white woman with significant family wealth, she enjoyed the freedom to pursue a career of her choice. As a student at Vassar—then one of the country’s few private colleges open to women—she made invaluable professional connections. At the same time, she faced gender bias in a male-dominated profession, which required working exponentially harder to prove herself. A peripatetic childhood, spent shuffled between relatives, cultivated her adventurousness, anchored by lifelong friendships. Hers is also a story of queer love and chosen family: For almost two decades, she shared a life with Patricia D. Willson, whose children knew McKenna as their “Other Mother.” By challenging received conventions of both womanhood and photographic genre, she embraced her medium to reflect the true complexity of human experiences—including her own.
This exhibition is generously supported by The Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation, Hoene Hoy Photography Fund, and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund. Research and writing throughout the exhibition were contributed by Jessica D. Brier, Curator of Photography; Léa Greenberg, Vassar class of 2025; and Mary-Kay Lombino, Deputy Director and Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.
