Sandy Skoglund, 1995-1996

Sandy Skoglund
Maurice Sanchez, printer
1995-1996

Workshop: October 19-20, 1995

Sandy Skoglund, Smith College class of 1968, is an installation artist, photographer, and sculptor. Her nationally and internationally shown installations strive to maintain a balance between fantasy and reality. Skoglund was named one of Life magazine’s top 100 photographers whose images have become part of our popular culture. She received a MA degree, and in 1972 the MFA, from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. She has been a professor of art since 1973, teaching first at the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School, and then at Rutgers University, New Jersey.

While the proofing of the print Babies at Paradise Pond was conducted over a two-day workshop in October 1995, the project began that spring when Sandy Skoglund visited the Smith campus to arrange and direct the photo-shoot that would become the central image. Skoglund positioned human volunteers and twenty-nine over-life-sized sculptures of infants that she had initially used in her photograph and installation of the same title Maybe Babies (1983). She chose Paradise Pond, located on the southwest side of the Smith College campus, as her setting. A selected photograph from this shoot was separated into seven plates, each printed by lithography in a different color. While Skoglund’s photographs are often highly-keyed color Cibachromes, the color scheme of her prints often take a softer palette. This tendency, however, does not make the result less arresting, as the rich blacks and cool blue greens highlight the fleshy-pink tone of the babies’ skin.

Sandra Louise Skoglund. American, 1946 –