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Betty Hahn | American, 1940-


Betty Hahn completed a BA at Indiana University (1963) with a focus in drawing and painting. She turned to photography as a graduate student at Indiana University and, at the suggestion of Henry Holmes Smith, began to experiment with alternative photographic processes. She completed her MFA there in 1966.

After completing her studies at IU, she moved north to Rochester and from 1967 to 1968 she participated in Nathan Lyon's Visual Studies Workshop alongside Robert Fichter, Thomas Barrow, Roger Mertin. Hahn taught at Rochester Institute of Technology until 1975. She was then offered a position at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she was a professor of photography until her retirement in 1997.


Hahn’s work emphasizes photography, while challenging established ideas regarding the medium’s presentation. Her work incorporates a variety of techniques including: appropriation and serial imagery and mediums such as lithography, painting, and embroidery.

Her work is held within the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Center for Creative Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Norton Simon Museum of Art among many others.

A mid-career exhibition and monograph, Betty Hahn: Photography or Maybe Not surveyed Hahn’s career up until 1995.