Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Truckee Canal, 1985, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Lucas Foglia, 2025.94. © Mimi Plumb.

Plumb’s photographs give shape to the things that keep us up at night, to the ambiguous and often overwhelming experience of living through times of trepidation and turmoil.— Gregory Harris, Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum

The High Museum of Art has recently launched the national tour for photographer Mimi Plumb’s first solo museum exhibition: Blazing Light: Photographs by Mimi Plumb that will run through May 10, 2026.

Over the last 50 years, Plumb has expertly and poignantly captured the evolution of the Western U.S. landscape and the lives of those within it. The exhibition features three of her major bodies of work, with more than 100 photographs that contemplate how changes in geopolitics, the economy and the environment have shaped the anxieties of American life from the 1970s to today.

After it debuts at the High, the exhibition will travel to three more venues: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York), the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach, Florida) and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

An interview with the artist follows.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Boys and Tires, Sears Point, 1976, pigmented inkjet print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Lucas Foglia, 2025.87. © Mimi Plumb.

Working in and around San Francisco, Plumb photographs the grand yet fragile beauty of the American West and the peculiarities of urban life with a distinctively raw visual approach. She skillfully renders California’s notoriously intense sunlight in gritty black-and-white images to amplify the psychological tension and imaginative possibilities that define turbulent times. The White Sky (1972–1978) captures the final glimmers of innocence and optimism during the years following World War II, as cracks in the façade of the American Dream began to widen. Landfall and The Golden City (1984–2020) present a society descending into chaos as an ambiguous disaster looms. The Reservoir (2021–2025) conveys a stark and desolate world seemingly in the aftermath of a powerful, undefined apocalypse. Across these bodies of work, Plumb mournfully charts how persistent unease continues to manifest from the dark realms of imagination into pressing realities.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Highway 4, 1975, pigmented inkjet print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Lucas Foglia, 2025.89. © Mimi Plumb.

A preeminent artist of her generation, Mimi Plumb has photographed the human-altered landscape for five decades to conjure the enduring issues of our day. Blazing Light, the artist’s first museum exhibition, brings together her three most important bodies of work that collectively contemplate the anxieties of contemporary American culture: the combined effects of climate change, unbridled capitalism, and ceaseless military conflict. As a teenager in the 1970s, Plumb began photographing during a time of rapid land development coupled with global political and economic instability. Her early artistic life was defined by a burgeoning awareness of global warming and the looming threats posed by the Cold War. This atmosphere attuned her to the evidence of such forces in the land, the built environment, and the ways people carry themselves and relate to one another—concerns that continue to abide in her work.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Coyote at the Park, 1976, pigmented inkjet print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Tell us about your growing up and what brought you to photography?

I see all of my work as a personal history, my view of the world I live in. It’s not a factual account but it’s also not fiction. I was born in Berkeley California but raised in a suburb 10 miles east of the city. I left suburbia as quickly as I could at 17 years old. I returned periodically in my late teens and early 20s to take pictures of where I grew up. The serious photography I had seen about the suburbs didn’t reflect my experience. The physical reality of being a redhead in a hot dry climate. The constant tearing up of the land to create more subdivisions, the physical harshness of the place. What did the people look like to me? What did the houses look like? What did the kids look like? What did we do? I didn’t consciously set out with this agenda but it does reflect what I wanted to describe in the work. I wanted to make a visual record of my experience. I think that’s what photography means to me. And gets at why I photograph.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Girl in the Mirror, 1972, pigmented inkjet print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2025.91. © Mimi Plumb.

Congratulations on the massive exhibition at the High, and thrilled that it will travel. How did the show come about?

In 2022 while reviewing work at Chico Review, I met this lovely couple, Greg Harris and Erin Hoyt, both of whom are deeply thoughtful curators. There was an immediate connection between the three of us. A year later Greg asked to visit me at my apartment/studio in Berkeley. While looking at my vintage prints and a new series I had been working on, The Reservoir, he asked if I would like to do a show at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. It was completely unexpected. I knew Greg liked my work but I didn’t realize how seriously he believed in it. We spent three years working on the show together.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Crowd and Fire, 1976, pigmented inkjet print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Alan and Jewett Rothschild, 2025.92. © Mimi Plumb.

What was the experience of seeing 100 of your images framed and on the walls?

I am grateful and truly touched that my work has meaning for people outside of my own experience. That’s what it feels like to see 105 of my photographs up on the walls of the museum.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Pool, Fire Above San Rafael, 1976, pigmented inkjet print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

There is such a consistency to your photographs. Have you used the same camera for whole career?

My early work from the 1970s was shot with a Leica, a 35 mm lens on a 35 mm camera. I wanted a camera with more descriptive power so in the 1980s I switched to a medium format camera. Most of my 1980s work was shot with a Plaubel Makina. I still use a medium format camera now.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Pyramid Lake, 1985, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Your exhibition spans multiple decades—how did you decide which images belong together now, in this moment?

Greg Harris had very specific ideas about which series he was interested in presenting at the High. There are certain themes that run through all three bodies of work, in particular global warming which is how I thought about it in the early days. There is also a strong undertone of tension and anxiety about a world seemingly out of balance that runs through the photographs. I believe the work was relevant when it was made and, because of the content, it’s still relevant today.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Boy with Sparkler, 1988, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from the Patrick Family Foundation, 2025.96. © Mimi Plumb.

What continues to compel you to photograph the American West?

I continue to photograph the American West because I live here. And I want to describe in my photographs the experience of what it feels like to live here. I trust my intuition more fully now, and was more hesitant about it when I was younger. I feel freer to do exactly what I want to do which is a good place to be.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Lamp, Brewster Street Fire, 1985, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Kim, 1987, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2025.101. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Tang, 1987, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Foundation, 2025.102. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Richard, 1986, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Building and Mercedes, 1987, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Treasure Island, 2020, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Lucas Foglia, 2025.103. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, 1990, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of the artist, 2025.106. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), White Fence, 1988, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Richard at the Palace, 1987, gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

About Mimi Plumb

Instagram: @mimi_plumb

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Tree I, 2021–2025, pigmented inkjet print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb.

Exhibition Catalogue

Mimi Plumb (American, born 1953), Families Picnicking by the Lake, 2021–2025, pigmented inkjet print, courtesy of the artist. © Mimi Plumb

About the High’s Photography Department