Wendy Watriss

(San Francisco, California, 1943 - )

North America, American

Wendy Watriss has contributed to the field of photography as a writer, curator and photojournalist. After graduating from New York University, she began her career as a freelance reporter and photographer for Newsweek magazine and The New York Times. Watriss covered political turmoil in Europe, drought in the African Sahel and the Nicaraguan Civil War. Her work in the United States focused on African American family life, rural poverty in Texas and the negative effects of the herbicide Agent Orange, which was used as a chemical weapon during the Vietnam War. The Agent Orange series led to legislation providing health care for veterans and their families. This work won World Press Photo and Oskar Barnack awards. In 1983, along with Frederick C. Baldwin, Watriss co-founded the photographic arts and education organization FotoFest, which is headquartered in Houston. She became the organization’s artistic director in 1991. Watriss has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment of the Arts/Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work is in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

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