Writing Desk in Parents’ Room

Shellburne Thurber graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Her work has been in numerous group and one person shows both here and abroad. Her work is in several collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Addison Gallery of American Art; the Worcester Art Museum; and the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

Shellburne Thurber has taught extensively throughout New England, most recently as visiting professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and was recently awarded a fellowship from the Saint Gaudens National Historic Site.

One Person Exhibitions

2019

Shellburne Thurber: Phantom Limb, Krakow Witkin Gallery, September 21, 2019 – November 2, 2019

2011

Shellburne Thurber: 9 Wellington, Barbara Krakow Gallery, March 19, 2011 – April 26, 2011

2004

Bloomberg Space, London, UK, August September

Participant, Inc., New York City, NY, March

2002

Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA, September November

Elias Fine Art, Allston, MA, September October

2001

Weatherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC, Summer

Stark Gallery, New York, NY April May

2000

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, December January

Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Boston, MA, October January

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April

1999

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, September October

1998

Elias Fine Art, Allston, MA, September

1997

Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, November

1996

Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, NY, September October

1994

Clark University, Worcester, MA, February

1990

Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA, December

1989

Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA, November

Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Pittsburgh, PA, March

1988

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, November

1986

Chapel Gallery, Newton, MA, February

1984

The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, May

1983

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, July

Group Exhibitions

2021

Remake, Krakow Witkin Gallery, May 13, 2021 – June 3, 2021

2017

Space, Barbara Krakow Witkin Gallery, June 10, 2017 – July 28, 2017

2014

Mereology, Barbara Krakow Gallery, December 19, 2014 – January 26, 2015

2013

Serface, Barbara Krakow Gallery, June 8, 2013 – July 26, 2013

2012

Annotations, Barbara Krakow Gallery, January 28, 2012 – March 10, 2012

2011

Alumni Invitational 3, Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, March-August

2010

Moving Patterns, Barbara Krakow Gallery, June 16, 2010 – August 3, 2010

Psychological Interior, Gallery Out of Place, Tokyo, Japan, October

2009

Familiar Feelings: On The Boston Group, Centro Galego De Arte Contemporanea, Fall

2007 

Information, Insight, Interruption, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA, September- October

At Work, Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, MA, September- October

People Take Pictures of Each Other, organized by Robert Nickas, Lamontagne Gallery, September- October

2006

The Couch: Thinking in Repose, Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna, Austria, May November*

Directors Choice: Chris McCarthy Curates Two Boston Photographers: Morgan Cohen & Shellburne Thurber, Provincetown Art Association & Museum, Provincetown, MA, September October

Summer Group Show, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, MA, June August

Reality/Play, Orchard, New York, NY, June

Information Insight Interruption, Hallspace, Roxbury, MA, February March

Arbor, Judy Goldman Fine Art, Boston, MA, January

2005

Places of the Spirit, Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA, June September

2003

Family Ties, The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, June September

Treat Yourself, The London Science Museum, London, UK, Summer

Places of the Spirit, organized by the Lake Placid Institute

The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY, Summer, travels to

The Society for the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, November December

The Housatonic Museum, Bridgeport, CT, June July 2004

Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, November January 2004

2002

This is Then, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, November February 2003

Illuminations, Marvelli Gallery, New York, NY, March April

2001

House: Charged Space, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Newton, MA, June September

BuildingDwellingThinking, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston, MA, June

Rocks+Trees, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA, April May

Photosynthesis: Recent Developments in Contemporary Photography,

Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL, January March, travels to

Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE, April July

2000

Photography in Boston: 1955 1985, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, October January

Interiors, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, September November

1999

A Range of Views, The Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, October

Playing off Time: Contemporary Photographers in Dialogue with the Past, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT September January

The Greatest Shows on Earth, Apex Art, NY, June

Jim Dow & Shellburne Thurber, Escuela Nacional de Fotografo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, June

Domesticated, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, June

Collectors Collect Contemporary 1990 99, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA April May

Building Representation: Photography & Architecture, Contemporary Interactions, Harvard

University ArtMuseums, Cambridge, MA

1998

Spectacular Optical, Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY, June July travels to: Museum of

Contemporary Art North Miami, FL

CU Art Galleries, University of Colorado at Boulder, September November

Domain, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY, February March

Kind of Blue: A Salon Show, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston, MA, February

1997

Making Pictures: Women and Photography, 1975 to Now, Nicole Klagsbrun, curator, Bernard Toale

Gallery, Boston, MA, April

Face and Figure, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Winter 1996 7

1996

Pictures of Modern Life, École des Beaux Arts, Tours, France, December

Pictures of Modern Life, Gallerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium, June

1995

Boston School, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, Fall Winter

Camera Craft, Beth Urdang / Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston, MA, Fall

Norfolk 95, Yale Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT, Summer

1993

Galerie FNAC Montparnasse, Paris, France, Fall

Four Photographers, Gallery NAGA, Boston, MA, January

Inhabited Spaces, Andrea Marquit Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Winter

1992

Gifts of Compassion: the Judith Fields Alviani Memorial Exhibition, Miller/Block Fine Arts, Boston,

MA, April

New England Photographers, 92, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA, April

Currents 92: The Absent Body, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, Winter

1991

National Color Photography Invitational, Pennsylvania School of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA,

September

New American Talent: The Seventh Exhibition, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, TX, May

4th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper Exhibition, Abercrombie Gallery, McNeese State

University, Lake Charles, LA, April

1990

Multiples, Chastain Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA, Fall

Modern Life, The Center for Photography, Woodstock, NY, May

Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, CA, January

1989

Witnesses Against Our Vanishing, Artists Space, New York, NY, December

New Portraiture, Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Polaroid Corporation, Cambridge, MA, February

1988

New Works Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago, September

Recent Realities, Clary Miner Gallery, Buffalo, NY, May

Social Life, The Center for Photography, Woodstock, NY, May

Photography 88, Harbor Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Dorchester, MA, April

1987

Interior Spaces Work by Contemporary New England Artists, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham,

MA, Fall

1986

Fact, Fiction, Fragment, Fetish, Stux Gallery, Boston, MA, December

1985

Portraits: Artists by Artists, Montserrat School of Visual Art, Beverly, MA, October

Boston Now Photography, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, Summer

Images from the Photography Collection, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University,

Cambridge, MA, January

1984

The Road Show Documents and Metaphors, The Photographic Archives, University of Louisville,

Louisville, KY, April

1983

Museum School Travelling Fellowship Winners, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, June

A Reasonable Likeness Contemporary Portraits, The Photographic Archives, University of

Louisville, Louisville, KY, February

Bibliography: Reviews and Articles

Caroline Cunningham, Artistry: Love Among The Ruins, New England Home, January/February 2010

Christine, Temin, A Soulful Look at Spiritual Sites, The Boston Globe, June 22, 2005

Martin Coomer, “Shellburne Thurber,” Time Out/ London, August 18­ 25, 2004

Martha Schwendener, “Shellburne Thurber,” Art Forum, Summer, 2004

Carrie Moyer, “A Sofa is Not Just a Sofa,” Gay City, April 1 7, 2004

Jerry Saltz, “Shrink Wrapped,” The Village Voice, March 29, 2004

David Bonetti,”Shellburne Thurber at the Boston Athenaeum, Art in America, April 2003

Joanne Silver, Photos catalog Athenaeums loveliness, The Boston Herald, October 11, 2002

Christine Temin, All over town, visual artists have a way with words, The Boston Globe, October 6, 2002

Christine Temin, Thurber wins prize, The Boston Globe, December 13, 2000

Joanne Silver, Thurbers photos find treasures in empty rooms, The Boston Herald, December 8, 2000

Vince Alletti, Air conditioned interiors, The Village Voice, August 22, 2000

Ken Johnson, Air conditioned interiors, The New York Times, August 11, 2000

Christine Temin, In therapists offices, light among shadows, The Boston Globe, April 14, 2000

Christine Temin, Thurber, Hodges limn a landscape of loss, The Boston Globe, September 10, 1999

Joanne Silver, Spirits lights way in Home, The Boston Herald, September 10, 1999

Joanne Silver, Home is where the art is, The Boston Herald, July 9, 1999

Miles Unger, Shellburne Thurber: Home, Art New England, December 1999/January 2000

Christine Temin, Collectors best of the 90s, The Boston Globe, April 2, 1999

Joanne Silver, Passion, power mark ICA show, The Boston Herald, April 2, 1999,p.S9

Christine Temin, Four shows offer Harvards photographic memories, The Boston Globe, April 4 1999, p. N2

Anne Wilson Lloyd, Shellburne Thurber at Elias Fine Art, Art in America, January, 1999, p. 109

Jane D. Marsching, Room: Photographs by Shellburne Thurber, Art New England, December 1998/January 1999, p. 38

Mary Sherman, Thurber works in a room of her own, The Boston Herald, October 25, 1999, p. 69

Christine Temin, Room examines the meaning of space, The Boston Globe, October 9, 1998, p. D6

Vince Aletti, Shellburne Thurber, The Village Voice, December 23, 1997

Ken Johnson, Shellburne Thurber, The New York Times, December 12, 1997

Jane Harris, Shellburne Thurber, Review, October 15, 1996, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Susan Inglett Gallery)

Linda Yablonsky, Shellburne Thurber, Time Out, New York, September 11 18, 1996, Issue No. 51 (Susan Inglett Gallery)

Brooks Adams New Humanist Photography, Print Collectors Newsletter, May/June, 1996, Vol. 27, No. 2

Vicki Goldberg, Intimate Snapshots from the Underground, The New York Times, December 24, 1995 (Boston School, ICA Boston)

Roland Tan, Tracing Bostons Gay Art Culture, The Harvard Crimson, October, 1995 (Boston School, ICA Boston)

Shawn Hill, Making the Scene, Bay Windows, October 26 November 1, 1995, Vol. 13 (Boston School, ICA Boston and Camera Craft, Urdang/Goldman)

Christine Temin, Before AIDS Remade the World, The Boston Globe, October 24, 1995 (Boston School, ICA Boston)

Shawn Hill, School Days, The TAB, Oct. 24 30, 1995, (Boston School, ICA Boston)

Miles Unger, Artificial Reality: Photography Today, Art New England, Feb. Mar., 1993, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Inhabited Spaces, Marquit)

Joanne Silver, Compassion Captures Women in Mourning, The Boston Herald, April 24, 1992 (Gifts of Compassion: Alviani Memorial Exhibition, Miller Block)

Nancy Stapen, Fresh Talent, A Timely Theme, The Boston Globe, January 24, 1992 (Currents 92: The Absent Body, ICA Boston)

Cate McQuaid, Missing Persons, Boston Phoenix, January 24, 1992 (Currents 92: The Absent Body, ICA Boston)

Kelly Spencer, Notable Absences, South End News, January 30, 1991, (Currents 92: The Absent Body, ICA Boston)

Laura C. Lieberman, Once is Not Enough, Afterimage, December, 1990, (Multiples, Nexus Gallery and Chastain Art Gallery)

John Russell, Images of Grief and Rage in Exhibition on AIDS, The New York Times, November 16, 1989, (Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, Artists Space)

Paul Richard, Witnesses: Testimony to the Power of an Age Old Taboo, The Washington Post, November 16, 1989, (Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, Artists Space)

Suzanne Muchnic, Witnesses Show Present AIDS as a Complex Issue, Los Angeles Times, November 16, 1989, (Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, Artists Space)

Tom Frick, Shellburne Thurber at Chapel, Art in America, October, 1986

Bibliography: Catalogues and Publications

 

Familiar Feeliings: On the Boston Group, 2009, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Divan, 3-4/2006, Tidskrift for psykoanalys och kultur, Stockholm, Sweden

Die Couch: Von Denken im Liegen, 2006, Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna, Austria

Lost Bodies: Inhabiting the Borders of Life and Death, 2006, Laura Tanner, Cornell University Press

October 113, Summer 2005, New York, NY

Southern Cultures, Fall 2004, UNC Center for the Study of the American South, Chapel Hill, NC

Nanoscopic Culture, 2003, National Institute of Medical Research, London, UK

Undomesticated Interiors, 2003, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton,, MA

Places of the Spirit, 2003, The Lake Placid Institute, Lake Placid, NY

Family Ties: A Contemporary Perspective, 2003, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Renovation: Photographs by Shellburne Thurber, 2002, The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA

The Georgia Review, Fall 2001, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA

Photosynthesis: Recent Developments in Contemporary Photography, 2001, Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL

Interiors, 2000, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC

Photography in Boston: 1955 1985, 2000, Lafo & Nagler, eds., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

Home: Photographs by Shellburne Thurber, 1999, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 

Playing off Time: Contemporary Photographers in Dialogue with the Past, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT

Collectors Collect Contemporary: 1990 1999, 1999, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Spectacular Optical, 1998 Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY

Pictures of Modern Life, 1996, Gallerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium

Boston School, 1995, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and Primal Media, Allston, MA

New American Talent: The Seventh Exhibition, 1991, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, TX

Fourth Annual McNeese National Works on Paper Exhibition, 1991, Abercrombie Gallery, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA

Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, 1989, Artists Space, New York, NY

Boston Now: Photography, 1985, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

Public Collections

BankBoston, Boston, MA

Bates College, Lewiston, ME

Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA

Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA

The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA

Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA

The Photographic Archives, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Polaroid Corporation Photographic Collection, Cambridge, MA

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

Awards

Alpert/UCross Residency Prize, Alpert Award in the Arts, January 2005

Purchase Award, Maud Morgan Prize, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA, December 2000

Bunting Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 1999 2000

Grant, Anonymous Was a Woman, New York, NY, 1996

Honorarium (awarded by Jane Baum), Images Gallery, June 1991

Rosalie Colligan Purchase Award, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA, April 1991

The Ellwood Jonigan Fellowship, Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz, NY, 1989

Albert H. Whitin Travelling Fellowship, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, June 1983

Residencies

The Boston Athenaeum, Artist in Residence, 1999 2000

Moonhole Artist Residence, Bequia, 1997

The Millay Colony for the Arts, Inc. Austerlitz, NY, 1989

Education

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1983 5th Year Graduate Program Certificate

1982 Diploma

Tufts University, Medford, MA

1975 BFA

Teaching

Massachusetts College of Art, Visiting Faculty, Photography Department, 1995 present

Tufts University, Visiting Faculty, Photography Department, 1994 1996