DANA GLUCKSTEIN | PHOTOGRAPHER

During her 25 year career, Dana Gluckstein has photographed iconic figures from Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Ali.  Her portraits are held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  

It's in her work with indigenous peoples that Dana Gluckstein's vision truly comes to light.  "The struggle to save ancient lands, waters, and traditions is a primal response to a war-torn world out of balance," Gluckstein says.  "In the end, their fight for preservation is also the plight of the civilized world."  Gluckstein's images depict cultures in transition, a collision of traditional, Western, and missionary influences that impact many of the last remaining traditional communities in the world.

The late renowned Los Angeles County Museum of Art photography curator, Robert Sobieszek explained, “The portraits taken by Dana Gluckstein evidence a clear attempt to reinvest portraiture with that something that was lost some time ago.  And that something is nothing less than the desire, or the requirement, to express the character and moral quality of the sitter in such a way that far more than likeness is suggested if not exactly revealed…Gluckstein bestows upon her sitters a sense of stilled dignity, a humaneness entirely devoid of any temporary, fleeting, or accidental quality.”

Gluckstein graduated from Stanford University, where she first fell in love with light and realized the power of images to shape consciousness. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. photokunst

All images © Dana Gluckstein