Lux, Loretta

German, b. 1969

BiographyLoretta Lux began photographing in 1999, though she continues to work at the painterly pace of half a dozen finished pictures each year. Her portraits of children (and the occasional adult or self-portrait) are carefully controlled at every stage of production, from the formality of the poses she selects to the narrow pastel palette of the final prints. Often the children of friends, her subjects are distinguished by their vintage outfits (including some of Lux’s own childhood things) and digitally adjusted features. Elongated limbs, oversized heads, and eyes spaced just a little farther apart than average contribute to the strange mystique found in their cool gazes and isolated locations. Computer manipulation is also employed to merge the subjects with their settings: backgrounds either painted by Lux or taken from her photographs of various European landscapes and interiors. The resolved scenes are produced as luminous Ilfochrome prints that, much like the images, enjoy the slick sensuality of processed goods.

Loretta Lux was born in 1969 in Dresden, Germany. She studied painting at Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich from 1990 to 1996, and began using the name Loretta Lux just before a group exhibition in 2000. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York; Hague Museum of Photography, The Hague; and Torch Gallery, Amsterdam. Her photographs have also been featured in exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; Art Institute of Chicago; and at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in its 2006 exhibition In Sight. She is the recipient of a Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis (2002) and The International Centre of Photography’s Infinity Award for Art (2005).