Edna Bullock
1915 - 1997
Home page: http://www.wynnbullockphotography.com
Archive contact: Barbara Bullock-Wilson (bbw@wynnbullockphotography.com)
Edna Bullock (American, b. May 20, 1915 - d. December 13, 1997) was born and raised in the small farming and ranching community of Hollister, California. Her first love was dance which she found ways to manifest throughout her life. After earning degrees and educational credentials from the Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, Edna taught physical education at Fresno High School until her marriage in 1943 to former concert singer and budding photographer Wynn Bullock. She devoted the next 15 years of her life to being a full-time helpmate and mother, raising two daughters, Barbara and Lynne, along with stepdaughter, Mimi. She then resumed her teaching career, this time in home economics. In 1974, she retired from teaching to care for her beloved husband, who died of cancer in November 1975.
Edna began her own career in photography in 1976, the year she turned 61. As she explained, "I had inherited a darkroom, camera equipment, and supplies. For more than 30 years, I had been immersed in the world of photography. My own needs to be artistically creative were strong, so I decided to enroll in beginning photography at Monterey Peninsula College and see what I could do." She tackled her new venture with typical zeal and, in an amazingly short time, friends such as Ansel Adams, Morley Baer, and Ruth Bernhard witnessed her evolution from student to workshop assistant to fellow teacher and exhibitor.
An exceptionally prolific artist for two decades, Edna produced a wide variety of black and white imagery, including an extensive series on flea markets. She is probably best known for her photographs of nudes, many of which can be found in a book released on her 80th birthday titled simply Edna's Nudes (Capra Press, 1995). Reflecting her character, her work is intuitive, direct, zesty, graceful, and touched with humor. Her final project was photographing fences. At the time, she said, "I find myself intrigued by boundaries, junctures, openings, and closings."
For many years, Edna maintained an active lecture schedule, sharing her late husband's work as well as her own. With her robust wit and open nature, she was also a popular instructor who led workshops on photographing the nude for dozens of groups and institutions. In 1995, she sharply curtailed these activities to conserve her energies for making photographs.
During her relatively short photographic career, Edna's images were displayed in over 100 individual and group exhibitions throughout the U.S. and abroad, reproduced in numerous publications, and included in the permanent collections of such institutions as Bibliotheque Nationale, Kyoto's National Museum of Modern Art, University of California at Santa Cruz, and University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography. A major collection of her work can also be found at the Monterey Museum of Art.