Aline Smithson

Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, editor, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she studied in the College of Creative Studies under the influence of artists such as John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha. After a career as a New York fashion editor working with leading figures in photography, she returned to Los Angeles and her own artistic practice.

Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and major museums and festivals across the United States, Europe, Asia, and South Korea. Her photographs are held in public collections and have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s, and PDN.

Smithson is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Lenscratch, a leading daily journal on photography, and has taught internationally since 2001. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to photography and education, including recognition from the Griffin Museum of Photography, CENTER, and the Lucie Foundation.

Her monographs include Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography and Fugue State, both widely collected by major museums. She has been a finalist for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and was named a Hasselblad Heroine. Smithson works exclusively with film, with the exception of her iPhone.