Gay Block
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Gay Block is a fine art portrait photographer, who was born in Houston, Texas.
In 1973 she began photographing her own affluent Jewish community in Houston. She later photographed an older Jewish Community of retirees in South Miami Beach, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. Block also photographed girls at summer camp. In 2006, Block re-photographed women who were the girls in her 1981 series from Camp Pinecliffe, twenty-five years earlier. Her noted work with writer Malka Drucker, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, both a book and traveling exhibit, has been seen in over fifty venues in the US and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, in 1992.[1]
In 2003, Block's 30-year series of portraits of her mother, in photographs, video, and words, Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, was published by University of New Mexico Press[2] and continues as a traveling exhibit. The book, Bertha Alyce, was cited as one of "Twelve Great Books Published During The Year 2003" by the editors of RALPH (The Review of Arts, Literature, Politics, and the Humanities)[3]. Her video of the material, "Bertha Alyce", was awarded People's Choice and Best Documentary by the Madrid International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Spain.
Also published in 2003, by Skylight Paths, is another collaboration with Drucker, White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America, which won the 2005 Southwest PEN award for non-fiction. Gay Block's photographs are included in museums and private collections including Museum of Modern Art New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
