News Release

Encompassing nearly four decades of photographing and of promoting women’s art and lesbian art, RetroContempo, an exhibition of artwork by Happy/L.A. Hyder, is on view in the James C. Hormel Lesbian & Gay Center at the San Francisco Main Library from May 5 through July 5. The exhibition coincides with region-wide events marking GLBT Pride Month in June 2007.

“My intent has always been to be a fine artist using photography as my tool,” says Hyder, a self-taught, San Francisco-based artist. “As a painter uses her canvas, I use my negative, full frame, to bring an image to life. Those negatives I choose to print hold all the elements of a strong narrative to draw a viewer in and hold their attention. I have come to call my work intricately simple—the more one looks, the more one sees.”

Hyder bought her first camera in 1969 and worked exclusively in black-and-white through the late ’80s. Since then, she has turned her eye to color, still using the essential elements of black-and-white photography to shape an image—light, shadow, texture, form. While her main focus is architecture and nature, two of Hyder’s best known images were taken during an author photo session with Alice Walker for the first edition of The Color Purple.

A founding collective member of Vida Gallery, housed in the San Francisco Women’s Building, Hyder was a Community Grand Marshal of the 2004 San Francisco Pride Parade; in 2003, she was named a KQED local hero for her founding and work with LVA: Lesbians in the Visual Arts.

Coinciding with Hyder’s 60th birthday, the exhibition opening event is from 3-5 p.m. on May 5. Hyder will also hold a lesbian photographer’s salon from 5:30-7 p.m. on June 21, followed by a Solstice ritual at the ocean. A closing reception will be held on July 5.

This exhibition, like all programs at the Library, is free and open to the public.
For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.