May 3 – June 2, 1990
Ave Bonar lives in Austin, Texas. She graduated from the College of Communication at the University of Texas in 1975, with a concentration in photojournalism. Russell Lee, a Farm Security Administration photographer who also lived in Austin, was her first mentor. Some of her other first influences included Elliott Erwitt, Erich Salomon, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Garry Winogrand.
After graduating, she freelanced for magazines, agencies, and institutions. When not on assignment she continued to carry her camera, always with an eye for an image that would satisfy her personal sense of photographic storytelling. Her work can be characterized as documentary in nature, but the document always has a potential narrative. She once created a language arts program for students K-12, which used her photographs as a stimulus for writing, encouraging students to imagine their own narrative for an image.
In 1990, the year of her exhibit at Blue Sky, she spent nine months traveling with Texas gubernatorial candidate Ann Richards, who went on to win the governorship. That work resulted in the book With Ann: A Journey across Texas with a Candidate for Governor.
Twenty years later, actress Holland Taylor wrote and starred in a one-woman play about Governor Richards. For three years Bonar documented the production of the play, titled Ann, which Taylor staged in several American cities. The play, which culminated in a run on Broadway, was nominated for a Tony Award in 2013.
Bonar’s work has been collected by numerous individuals and corporations as well as institutions, including the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas, Austin; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas; and the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Research institutions that hold her work include the Austin History Center and the Briscoe Center for American History. Her work is represented by the Stephen L. Clark Gallery in Austin.