Laura Wilson

From her early days working with Richard Avedon on his American West project, to her current interest in documenting the work of mountain lion hunters in Arizona, Laura Wilson’s photographic career has been wide ranging and far reaching, but always firmly rooted in the West: its land, its traditions, and its people. Her award-winning books, multiple photographic exhibitions, and countless newspaper and magazine articles attest to the ruggedness and individuality of people within the American West. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ Magazine, English Vogue, London’s Sunday Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and Wallpaper. Wilson brings her own unique vision and approach to her work to create revealing portraits. She has great curiosity and respect for the people she photographs and has the special ability to draw her subjects out, to gain their trust so that they cooperate, making a portrait session more of a collaboration. Now in the fourth decade of her career, Wilson has shown no signs of slowing down. For the past several years, she has traveled into the Chiricahua Mountains on horseback, photographing Warner Glen as he and his hounds navigate the rugged and unforgiving terrain hunting for lions in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. She has won multiple book and photography awards and been granted such prestigious honors as membership to the Texas Institute of Letters and the Philosophical Society of Texas.

2019 Cowgirl Honoree – Texas