Susan Middleton

 

Susan Middleton is an artist, photographer, author, and educator specializing in the portraiture of rare and endangered animals, plants, sites, and cultures. She was Chair of the Department of Photography at the California Academy of Sciences from 1982 to 1995, where she now serves as research associate.  Her most recent book is Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life (Abrams, 2014). Previous books include Evidence of Evolution (Abrams 2009), Archipelago and Remains of a Rainbow (National Geographic); Witness and Here Today (Chronicle Books).  She has produced films and exhibitions in conjunction with her book projects, including serving as associate producer for the Emmy Award winning National Geographic film America’s Endangered Species: Don’t Say Goodbye (NBC & PBS,1998).  She produced a short film for the web, ‘Hermit Crabs!’,

published on YouTube.


Middleton was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 2009, and is the recipient of an Endangered Species Coalition Champion Award for Education and Outreach and a Bay & Paul Foundation Biodiversity Leadership Award. Middleton’s photographs have been exhibited and published throughout the world, both in fine art and natural history contexts.  Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art and the National Academy of Sciences. She lives in San Francisco.