Chiarenza, Carl

American, b. 1935

BiographyCarl Chiarenza grew up in Rochester, New York where he developed an early passion for photography and later studied with Minor White and Ralph Hattersley at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His early black-and-white landscape work gave way to more abstract collage work made in the studio using torn paper and other found materials. His later work is most concerned with exploring collage as emotional assemblages which consider the relationship between nature and the self.

After Chiarenza received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, he served as Professor of Art History at Boston University and the University of Rochester. He was later named Chair of the department and currently serves as the Fanny Knapp Allen Professor Emeritus and Artist in Residence. His work has been shown in more than 80 solo and 250 group exhibitions and has several published books. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the University of Richmond Art Museums, VA; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Oh; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; the Mead Museum of Art, MA; the Tampa Museum of Art, FL; the International Center of Photography, NY; the RISD Museum of Art, RI; the George Eastman House, NY; Krannert Art Museum, IL; among others. His work is held in numerous museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among others.