Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born American woman and mother, her cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography.
Matar’s work has been widely exhibited in museums worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Carnegie Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Rollins Museum of Art, and more. It is part of the permanent collections of several museums, institutions, and private collections. A mid-career retrospective of her work was recently on view at Cleveland Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum of Art, American University of Beirut Museum.
Matar received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant, 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships in 2021, 2011 and 2007. In 2008 she was a finalist for the Foster Award at the ICA/Boston, with an accompanying solo exhibition.
She published four books:
SHE, 2021; L’Enfant-Femme, 2016; A Girl and Her Room, 2012; Ordinary Lives, 2009.
Rania Matar is represented by Galerie Tanit Beirut/Munich.
