Arno Rafael Minkkinen, a former Madison Avenue copywriter, has compiled to date one of the longest running, nonstop self-portrait bodies of work in the photographic history of the genre. The driving force behind the 55-year journey since 1969 has been to avoid repetition by keeping each picture, while always the same (self-portraits without an ounce of manipulation), always decidedly different. Guggenheim fellow, Lucie Award winner, and Pro Finlandia medalist, it’s Minkkinen’s teaching record that holds equal significance for him. SPE Honored Educator both regionally and nationally, that commitment includes positions at all levels starting with teaching assistant at RISD, assistant professor at MIT, visiting artist at Philadelphia College of Art, and currently Emeritus Professor at UMass Lowell and docent at Aalto University in Helsinki. Other teaching stints have included international higher education institutions in Norway, France, Switzerland, and Germany, not to mention countless workshops from Brazil to Tuscany to Beijing and from Alaska to Florida, Arizona to Maine. Solo exhibitions worldwide number well over 100, twice that with group shows. With eight monographs, and seven gallery representations worldwide—Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, Torino, Beijing, Boston, and New York—Minkkinen is as seriously engaged now with filmmaking as he is with his photography. A feature length screenplay he has written is in development with the Inland Film Company in Helsinki, Finland.

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All images © Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. Header image: Continental Divide at Independence Pass, Colorado, 2012.