Rosalind Fox Solomon

Rosalind Fox Solomon (April 2, 1930 – June 23, 2025) was an American photographer based in New York City.

In 2007, the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography acquired Solomon's archive, which includes her photographic archive, books and video work. In 2019, she received the International Center of Photography's Lifetime Achievement Infinity Award. Her work is held in the collections of the Center for Creative Photography, Museum of Modern Art, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur.

Solomon was born on April 2, 1930, in Highland Park, Illinois. She graduated from Highland Park High School in 1947. She attended Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1951.

Later Solomon became the Southern Regional Director of the Experiment in International Living. In this capacity, she visited communities throughout the Southern United States, recruiting families to host international guests and interact with other cultures in a personal way.

In August 1963, Solomon traveled to Washington, D.C. for an interview with the Equal Employment Department of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was then establishing a program for part-time recruiter–consultants in various regions of the United States. Solomon and a group of USAID staff including Roger Wilkins (nephew of Roy Wilkins) joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Subsequently, in her work for USAID, Solomon traveled to historically black colleges in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee where she spoke to students and faculty about overseas employment opportunities.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968, Solomon's volunteer work with the Experiment in International Living brought her to Japan where she stayed with a family near Tokyo. There, at age 38, Solomon began to use an Instamatic camera to communicate her feelings and thoughts. This was the starting point for her photography practice, which also includes prose related to her life experiences.

Upon her return to the United States, Solomon photographed regularly. She purchased a Nikkormat in 1969 and in the garden shed she processed 35 mm black and white film and printed her first pictures. In 1971, she began intermittent studies with Lisette Model during visits to New York City (which continued until 1977). By 1974, she was using a medium format camera. Dolls, children, and manikins were some of her first subjects, along with portraits and rituals. She worked with black and white film exclusively.

In 1975, Solomon began photographing at the Baroness Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She photographed people recovering from operations, wounds, and illness. In early 1977, Solomon photographed William Eggleston, his family and friends in Tennessee and Mississippi. She moved to Washington where she photographed artists and politicians for the series "Outside the White House" in 1977 and 1978. In 1978 and 1979, she also photographed in the Guatemalan Highlands. Her interest in how people cope with adversity, led her to witness a shaman's rites and a funeral and made photographs in Easter processions.