“Mom and I found another way to keep making portraits of one another without showing the domestic interior. We took our mattresses, stood them upright against the wall, and draped them with our comforters. For approximately one hour, we would quietly rotate . . . The bedroom became a stage and a studio.”
—LaToya Ruby FrazierLatoya Ruby Frazier’s The Notion of Family is a multi-generational photo documentary project which she embarked on with her mother and grandmother in 2001. Motivated by the disintegration of her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania and its impact on the lives of black middle-class communities, Frazier focused her lens on the people and places closest to her. Inspired by photographers such as Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange, Frazier’s photographs capture the humanity of her subjects while examining the role of social structures in determining their livelihoods. While deeply personal in its depiction of intimate relationships and familial possessions, as in the current portrait of the artist and her mother, her work also addresses themes of racism, industrialization, justice and healthcare; topics that are at once specific and universal.
Since its debut in 2009, The Notion of Family has been widely exhibited with exhibitions in Miami, Atlanta, Paris, Charlottesville, and Pittsburgh. The book, published by Aperture in 2015, received the International Center for Photography’s Infinity Award. Photographs from this series, alongside an expansive selection of Frazier’s other works, were mounted at the Museum of Modern Art as a major retrospective exhibition entitled Monuments of Solidarity from May 12 – September 7, 2024.
In 2013, LaToya Ruby Frazier was one of three shortlisted photographers for the Art Gallery of Ontario’s AIMIA AGO Photography Prize which recognized artists ‘working in photography whose work exhibited extraordinary potential over the preceding five years.’ This print was acquired at the time by the corporate collection, AIMIA, in connection with their sponsorship of the event. The Prize brought recognition to 40 artists over the course of its decade-long run, including Hank Willis Thomas, who was the final winner to receive the honor in 2017 at which point it was retired.
