Linda Wolf

Wolf was born in Los Angeles, California, on March 17, 1950, and raised in Sherman Oaks, California. Her mother, Barbara Wolf (née Friedman), is a poet and was a fashion model and English literature teacher at Beverly Hills High School. Her father, Joseph Wolf, was a businessman and avid photographer. Wolf's interest in photography was born out of her father's passion for photography. He bought her first camera for her when she was a teenager.

Wolf attended Hollywood High School and graduated in 1968. In 1969, she began dating Sandy Konikoff, the drummer for Jackson Browne. He invited her to live at Paxton Lodge in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where Elektra Records was recording one of Browne's first albums. There was a darkroom at the studio, and she was inspired by the experience and made a decision to pursue photography professionally.

Wolf's grandfather, Jules Wolf, managed the historic Lincoln Theater, often called the Apollo of the West.[3]

2023 Recipient of a SOLA Award. SOLA's Mission is "to award cash grants to female visual artists over 60 who are currently living in Washington State and have created a body of work spanning at least 25 years."[11]

Wolf's photographs are in the collections of:

• Musee Reattu, Arles, France[12]
• Musee Cantini, Marseille, France[13]
• Musee Het Sterkshof, Antwerp, Belgium
• Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France[14][15]
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio, US[16][17]
• Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, California, US
• Women's Building, Los Angeles, California, US
• Photographic Center of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan[18]
• Harborview Medical Center Hand Wing Gallery, Seattle, Washington, US

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wolf created a public art project of murals consisting of photos of ordinary people sitting on bus benches. The photographs were placed on the sides of buses and the backs of bus benches in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Oakland, California in the US, and Arles, France. The benches were conceived as a response to the dehumanizing effects of advertising,[25][26][27] and were exhibited in numerous venues including the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Rencontres International Festival of Photography in Arles, France.[28] One of the benches sits in the courtyard of Musée Réattu as part of their permanent collection in Arles.[29]

Wolf then developed the project L.A. Welcomes the World, a series of large-scale multicultural portraits of people presented on billboards throughout Los Angeles, for the 1984 Summer Olympics, which was sponsored by Eastman Kodak.[30]

• 1981 – Co-founder of Women in Photography International,[31] which is archived in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Peter E. Palmquist Collection[32][33]
• 1993 – Co-founder of The Daughters Sisters Project, now called Teen Talking Circles, a non-profit organization supporting girl's empowerment, gender relationships, and youth activism

Wolf has authored five books and three documentary shorts featuring her photography:

• 1997 – Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun: Young Women and Mentors on the Transition to Womanhood[34]
• 2005 – Speaking and Listening From the Heart, The Art of Facilitating Teen Talking Circles[35]
• 2012 – Bridge of Glass: My mother and me: the relationship with my mother, poet, Barbara Wolf
• 2014 – I Am A Full Woman (documentary)[36]
• 2015 – Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century: Stories from a New Generation of Activists[37]
• 2015 – Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen Memory Book[38]
• 2018 – The Caravan: Seeking Asylum in the United States [39]
• 2020 - Tribute: Cocker Power

Contributions to published books and films:

• 1984 – Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of LA - Alfred van der Marck Editions
• 2010 – Leon Russell - Tulsa Area Music Archives
• 2011 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Video: Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen (film, 1970)
• 2012 – Making Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing - Imperfect Publishing
• 2012 – Twenty Feet From Stardom: Leon Russell Montage (film)
• 2013 – Willin': The Story of Little Feat - Da Capo Press
• 2015 – Land of a Thousand Bridges: The June Millington Autobiography
• 2016 – Delta Lady: the Autobiography of Rita Coolidge
• 2017 – Intensa Levedad: Pury Estalayo

Wolf graduated from Hollywood High School in 1968.

From 1970 to 1975, she lived and studied in Provence, France, attending the Institute for American Universities, and L'Ecole Experimental Photographic.[40]

Her early photographic work in France focused on people and village life in the Vaucluse Mountains.[41]

Upon returning to the US, Wolf attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She taught photography through the University of California at Los Angeles Extension and worked as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Citywide Mural Project.[42]