Laurie Simmons
Laurie Simmons was born October 3, 1949, on Long Island, New York. She began photographing at the age of six and went on to receive her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, 1971. Two years later, she moved to Soho in New York. Her earliest work consisted of portraits of friends but then shifted to photographing toys after working freelance for a dollhouse miniature company. In the 1980s, Simmons began staging photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as “living objects”. One of Simmons most famous works was the film, The Music of Regret, 2006, in which she used vintage puppets and recruited Meryl Streep, along with Alvin Ailey dancers dressed as oversized inanimate objects in a three-part musical. Simmons has received many awards, including the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome, 2005. As well as fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1997, and the National Endowment for the Arts, 1984. She has had major exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 2006, and has participated in two Whitney Biennial Exhibitions in 1985 and 1991. Simmons currently lives and works in New York.
Laurie Simmons is featured in Edition: The Best of the Met
