LEE MARMON

Little Girls at the Clothesline

At the age of ten, living on the Laguna Pueblo lands of New Mexico, Lee Marmon entered the ranks of professional photographers when he earned two dollars for photographing a truck accident for a local insurance company. The photo shoot had been his father’s idea; he handed his son a camera and said, “Go to it.” Being given the camera and earning money for his photographs was prophetic for Lee, but at the time he never expected that this early experience would be the catalyst for a career that has spanned decades.  While serving in the army in Alaska, Marmon made a promise to himself: He decided he would get a camera if it was the last thing he did, and he would use his talent to record his world and his people. When he returned home after the war, he bought his first Speed Graphic camera and photographed everything he could. For the past fifty years, Lee Marmon has been documenting the noble spirit and enduring legacy of his elder tribes people in his native Laguna, New Mexico. The passing of time has turned his prolific collection of rare and high quality photographs – both portraits and landscapes - into a breathtaking album of images that he proudly calls, “Visions of My People.” Marmon currently lives in Laguna, New Mexico. The Wittliff Gallery is proud to own ten of his original prints to date. 

SOURCES: The Pueblo Imagination: Landscape and Memory in the Photography of Lee Marmon (Beacon Press, 2003), Lee Marmon website, http://www.leemarmongallery.com/main.html
PHOTO  http://www.leemarmongallery.com/main.html