Biographical Note
Larry Colwell was born in Detroit, Michigan, on December 28, 1901, to naturalized Canadian parents; his birthname was Lavern or Laverne according to census records.
His interest in photography began around 1938. From 1939 to 1941, Colwell studied photography in Los Angeles at both the Art Center School and the Choinard School of Art. At his photography studio in New York City, he got his start in advertising and fashion photography, with his photographs appearing in major national magazines such as Time, Life, Vogue, Aperture, and others. In the 1950s, through the support of Minor White at Aperture magazine, Colwell became distinguished for his figure studies.
His dance photography began with dancers of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1955, Colwell was given a one-artist exhibit of his dance photographs by the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Relocating to Monterey, California, in 1950, he was introduced to noteworthy photographers such as Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Imogen Cunningham, and Ruth Bernhard. From 1964 to 1968, Colwell taught creative photography at the Jacksonville Art Museum, where Anthony Barboza (1944- ) was among his students. He was an instructor of photography at the Silvermine College of Art in New Canaan, Connecticut, until 1971.
Larry Colwell died in New Canaan, Connecticut, in 1972.
Among the galleries and collections that have Colwell's work are the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; the Hallmark Photographic Collection in Kansas City, Missouri; the Jewish Museum in New York City; the University of New Mexico Art Museum; the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; New York Public Library; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.