Born in Washington D.C., to an upper-middle class Jewish family, Nan Goldin ran away from home at the age of 14 after the death of her sister. She earned a B.F.A. from Tufts University in 1977 with an exhibition based on her photographic journeys of Boston's queer and drag-queen communities. In 1978, she moved to New York where she began capturing her friends in snapshots that documented their nightlife, sexual experiences, and drug use. By the early 1980s, most of these friends were dying of AIDS, or like herself, fell victim to drug addictions and abusive relationships. It was during this t … (read more)

Born in Washington D.C., to an upper-middle class Jewish family, Nan Goldin ran away from home at the age of 14 after the death of her sister. She earned a B.F.A. from Tufts University in 1977 with an exhibition based on her photographic journeys of Boston's queer and drag-queen communities. In 1978, she moved to New York where she began capturing her friends in snapshots that documented their nightlife, sexual experiences, and drug use. By the early 1980s, most of these friends were dying of AIDS, or like herself, fell victim to drug addictions and abusive relationships. It was during this time that her photographic portraits became more intimate exploring the themes of love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality. After completing a photographic series on her sister and then on her friends experiencing the final stages of AIDS, she moved to Paris in 2002 where she continued to document the intimacy between couples in their daily routines.

She currently lives and works in Paris, New York, and London and has had numerous international retrospectives including at the Centre Georges Pompidou; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; White Cube Gallery; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

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