John M. Willis

John Willis received his M.F.A. in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1986. Since that time he has been teaching photography and exhibiting his personal fine art and documentary imagery. John is the Professor of Photography at Marlboro College and co-founder of the In-Sight Photography Project founded in 1992, offering courses to southern Vermont area youth regardless of their ability to pay. Ten years ago he also co-founded the Exposures Cross Cultural Youth Photography Program, which brings youth together from a wide variety of backgrounds to share photography lessons and life stories. John’s work has been included in the Open Society Foundation’s Moving Walls 19 Exhibition. He has also been awarded Artist Fellowships from the Vermont Council on the Arts and the Vermont Arts Endowment. His work isin numerous permanent collections, including: the High Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, The Bibliotheque Nationale de France, The George Eastman House Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Portland Museum of Art, The Library of Congress, San Francisco MoMA, The Getty, and The National Museum of Native Americans. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at The Stark Gallery in New York City; Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon; Photographic Resource Center, Boston; the Oglala Lakota College; and The Robert F. Fullerton Museum in San Bernardino, California. John’s images have been highlighted in various published books and journals, including Lenswork, Orion Magazine, and Flesh and Blood: Photographers Photograph Their Families, published by The Picture Project. John’s collaborative book project with photographer Tom Young, Recycled Realities (2005), and his recent publication Views From The Reservation (2010) was both  published by the Center for American Places and Columbia College.