Abelardo Morell

(American/Cuban, born 1948)

Abelardo Morell is a contemporary Cuban-born American photographer renowned for his use of camera obscura to capture land and cityscapes. The artists’s interest in the early technology came from a demonstration to his students in the early 1990s, and he has since used the technique to transform both outdoor and indoor spaces into agents of the photographic process. The results can look surreal, and Morell has said that “photography’s power is to make even dreams seem quite concrete.” Born on September 17, 1948 in Havana, Cuba, his family emigrated to the United States in 1962. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1977, from where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 1997. Morell continued his studies at Yale University, earning an MFA in 1981. The artist currently lives and works in Boston, MA, and was the subject of the documentary Shadow of the House (2007).