Michael Kenna (born 1953) is one of the most acclaimed landscape photographers of his generation with a truly global audience for his work. He has held over 475 solo exhibitions in 40 countries and his photographs have been the subject of over 70 monographs. To date his prints are held in the permanent collections of over 100 museums worldwide.
Kenna was born in Lancashire, England, into an Irish Catholic family. From an early age he aspired to be a priest and, aged ten, began studying at a seminary school. However, art quickly became his strongest subject and at the age of 17 he moved to Banbury, Oxfordshire and studied at the Banbury School of Art. He explored drawing, painting, print making, pottery and photography, before going on to pursue a degree at the London College of Printing. Initially Kenna concentrated on commercial photography, however, he soon turned to the landscape after seeing the work of Bill Brandt, Josef Sudek, Eugène Atget and Alfred Stieglitz, who were highly influential to him.
Kenna currently lives in Seattle, with his wife and children. His photographs are held in over 110 permanent collections including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He has been exhibited globally including solo exhibitions in China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. Kenna is also the recipient of numerous awards including the Imogen Cunningham Award, San Francisco, USA in 1981; he was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of of Culture in Paris, France in 2000; in 2003 he became an Honorary Master of Arts at the Brooks Institute, USA and in 2016 he was awarded the Special Photographer Award, Higashikawa, Japan.
