ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINEN

born in 1945 in Helsinki (Finland), lives in Andover, Massachusetts (USA)
www.arno-rafael-minkkinen.com

Arno Rafael Minkkinen moved to America with his family at the age of six. Working as a copywriter in New York, he began making self-portraits in 1971. Studying with Harry Callahan at Rhode Island School of Design, Minkkinen attained a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1974. Currently Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts Lowell,he also serves as Docent at Aalto University of Art & Design Helsinki. His photographs have been exhibited throughout the world since the 1970s and are held in numerous museum and private collections.

Along with publications worldwide in books, periodicals and journals, nine monographs have been published, including Frostbite (Morgan & Morgan, 1978); Waterline (Marval, Aperture, Otava, 1994); SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Thirty-Five Years of Photographs (Chronicle Books, 2005); Homework [Like Ltd., Helsinki, 2008); and Balanced Equation (Lodima Press, 2010). As a curator, Minkkinen organized New American Nudes (Morgan & Morgan, 1981) for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Elegant Intimacy (University of Art & Design Helsinki, 1993) for the Retretti Art Center in Finland.

Minkkinen was awarded a regional grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991. In Finland, he was conferred knighthood by the Finnish government in 1992 and awarded the Finnish State Art Prize in Photography in 2006. The Finnish Film Foundation awarded him a Screenwriting Grant in 2010.