Gillian Laub

Gillian Laub (April 24, 1975) is an American photographer, filmmaker, and visual artist whose work explores the intersection of social issues and personal relationships. Her practice combines portrait photography, long-form photo essays, documentary film, and visual storytelling to examine themes including race, conflict, identity, family. and cultural memory.

Over a career spanning more than two decades, Laub has become known for documenting socially charged subjects through intimate portraiture and long-term projects. Her best-known works include Testimony (2007), Southern Rites (2015), Family Matters (2021), and Live2Tell, an ongoing large-scale oral history and portrait project documenting Holocaust survivors.

Laub is the recipient of numerous honors, including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship, and the Alice Austen House Award for the Advancement of Photography. In 2019, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Harvard Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the High Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, the International Center of Photography, the Rose Art Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, among others.