Maria Martinez-Cañas

Born in Havana, Cuba, Maria Martinez-Cañas has been widely recognized during a prolific career spanning over 40 years, with works of art in permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ford Foundation, International Center of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Walker Art Center and the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, amongst others.

Her career has been marked by an insatiable drive to experiment with different photographic techniques. She received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Photography Fellowship and has been the recipient of many awards and grants, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1988) and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellowship (2014) in Umbertide, Italy.

Martínez-Cañas received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the Philadelphia College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts in photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been a professor at New World School of the Arts since 1996, where she has mentored dozens of our city’s visual artists.