©C. Rose Smith, Untitled no. 90, Belmont Mansion, Nashville, TN, 2023, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy of the artist

Serving as a conduit for the oppressed, my self-assertion reimagines and reinserts their existence in spaces where they were once unauthorized. Together, we speak truth to power, reckoning with and redressing a past that looms in the here and now. – C. Rose Smith

Congratulations to artist C. Rose Smith for receiving the 2025 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. The award includes  a $20,000 prize awarded annually to a photographer whose work demonstrates a compelling new vision in photographic portraiture. C. Rose Smith and the other Finalists will be featured in an exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography in December 2025. In addition to the $20,000 cash prize, the 2025 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture will include a significant new benefit for artists – a professionally produced publication showcasing the work of the prize recipient, three finalists, and six additional photographers recognized in the Top Ten. This softcover, perfect-bound publication will serve as a lasting record of the year’s most compelling approaches to photographic portraiture. It will include a feature on the prize recipient, selected works by the Finalists and Top Ten artists, and contextual information about Arnold Newman’s legacy, the history of the prize, and the role of Maine Media as its steward.C. Rose Smith has numerous concurrent and upcoming exhibitions:

Tender Visions of the Here and Now
University of Memphis Art Museum, Memphis, TN
thru November 30, 2025

C Rose Smith: A Silent Rage
Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
The Brandeis University Woman’s Studies Research Center
thru January 8, 2026

C. Rose Smith is a visual artist examining the role of photography in constructing the layers of identity and individuality. Using fashion, site-specificity, and elements gleaned from studio portraiture, their photographs engender a subversive performance that gestures a critique of social norms. Born in Memphis, TN and raised in Atlanta, GA, Smith grew up learning the value of representation and record-keeping of images from watching their father take up the role of both photographer and videographer, and their two grandmothers assist in portrait studios.

Their work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at venues and festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Autograph ABP (London, UK), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA), FotoFest Biennial (Houston, TX), Tempe Centre for the Arts (Tempe, AZ), and PhotoBrussels (Brussels, Belgium), among others. Their work is held in the Wedge Collection and various private collections. Smith earned an MFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology and a BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design. They are an Artist Scholar in Residence at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center, and currently serve as the Assistant Curator of Photography at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, TN. Smith is based in Memphis, TN.

Instagram: @c.rosesmith

©. Rose Smith, Untitled no. 15, Washington Mills, Lawrence, MA, 2022, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy of the artist

Scenes of Self: Redressing Patriarchy

C. Rose Smith, an American photographer, utilizes her artistic practice as a powerful tool to interrogate and question societal norms, using semiotics embedded in garments, gestures, and historicized landscapes. Her self-portraiture engages with the politics of race, gender, and power through an intentional visual language. In her ongoing photographic series Scenes of Self: Redressing Patriarchy, Smith compellingly explores the symbolism of the white cotton dress shirt, examining its role in the construction of identity and the legacy of power within the context of antebellum architecture-specifically homes formerly owned by cotton merchants and plantation owners in the American South.

The white shirt, a seemingly innocuous and conservative article of clothing typically worn beneath a business suit, is recontextualized by Smith when placed on her Black queer body. In doing so, she transforms the garment into a charged signifier that both critiques and reclaims its colonial and capitalist histories. This act of visual redress draws attention to the cotton industry’s deeply intertwined relationship with the transatlantic slave trade, the antebellum South, and the construction of whiteness and respectability. By foregrounding the shirt outside its traditional context and placing it on a body that historically would have been excluded from its symbolic power, Smith challenges viewers to reconsider what clothing communicates about authority, race, gender, and autonomy.

Smith’s portraits are evocative of 19th-century studio photography and classical painting. She draws from these traditional visual forms to reimagine and reinsert marginalized bodies into historical narratives that have long excluded them. The images are meticulously composed, incorporating the quiet austerity and visual language of archival portraiture while simultaneously disrupting it. The use of antebellum sites and former textile mills as settings further anchors the work in historical critique, juxtaposing the physical remnants of slavery, labor, and racial violence with the presence of a defiant, living subject. Through this juxtaposition, Smith collapses time, making the past visible in the present and vice versa.

Smith’s self-representation expresses an intentionally ambiguous Black identity-at once queer, human, and uncontainable. Her images embody what she calls a “quiet rage,” a term that speaks to the undercurrent of resistance, grief, and strength embedded in her visual narratives. This affective tension invites contemplation on the enduring effects of historical trauma while also asserting the autonomy and multiplicity of Black life.

Inspired by a lineage of African American photographers who have used the camera as a tool for representation and reclamation, Smith continues this legacy with a practice deeply rooted in personal experience and cultural history. She creates a visual archive that documents identity, time, and space, offering new paradigms for visualizing the self beyond imposed social constructs.

Smith holds a BFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is included in numerous private collections.

C. Rose Smith, an American photographer, utilizes her artistic practice as a powerful tool to interrogate and question societal norms, using semiotics embedded in garments, gestures, and historicized landscapes. Her self-portraiture engages with the politics of race, gender, and power through an intentional visual language. In her ongoing photographic series Scenes of Self: Redressing Patriarchy, Smith compellingly explores the symbolism of the white cotton dress shirt, examining its role in the construction of identity and the legacy of power within the context of antebellum architecture-specifically homes formerly owned by cotton merchants and plantation owners in the American South.

The white shirt, a seemingly innocuous and conservative article of clothing typically worn beneath a business suit, is recontextualized by Smith when placed on her Black queer body. In doing so, she transforms the garment into a charged signifier that both critiques and reclaims its colonial and capitalist histories. This act of visual redress draws attention to the cotton industry’s deeply intertwined relationship with the transatlantic slave trade, the antebellum South, and the construction of whiteness and respectability. By foregrounding the shirt outside its traditional context and placing it on a body that historically would have been excluded from its symbolic power, Smith challenges viewers to reconsider what clothing communicates about authority, race, gender, and autonomy.

Smith’s portraits are evocative of 19th-century studio photography and classical painting. She draws from these traditional visual forms to reimagine and reinsert marginalized bodies into historical narratives that have long excluded them. The images are meticulously composed, incorporating the quiet austerity and visual language of archival portraiture while simultaneously disrupting it. The use of antebellum sites and former textile mills as settings further anchors the work in historical critique, juxtaposing the physical remnants of slavery, labor, and racial violence with the presence of a defiant, living subject. Through this juxtaposition, Smith collapses time, making the past visible in the present and vice versa.

Smith’s self-representation expresses an intentionally ambiguous Black identity-at once queer, human, and uncontainable. Her images embody what she calls a “quiet rage,” a term that speaks to the undercurrent of resistance, grief, and strength embedded in her visual narratives. This affective tension invites contemplation on the enduring effects of historical trauma while also asserting the autonomy and multiplicity of Black life.

Inspired by a lineage of African American photographers who have used the camera as a tool for representation and reclamation, Smith continues this legacy with a practice deeply rooted in personal experience and cultural history. She creates a visual archive that documents identity, time, and space, offering new paradigms for visualizing the self beyond imposed social constructs.

Smith holds a BFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is included in numerous private collections.

©C. Rose Smith, Untitled no. 17, Pacific Mills, Lawrence, MA, 2022, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy of the artist

©C. Rose Smith, Untitled no. 104, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery (Jewel in the Park), Memphis, TN, 2025, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy of the artist

©C. Rose Smith, Untitled no. 56, Whitney Plantation, Edgard, LA, 2022, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy of the artist

Installation images from A Silent Rage, Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA The Brandeis University Woman’s Studies Research Center

Installation View, C. Rose Smith: A Silent Rage, On view in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery through January 8, 2026. Sasha Pedro Photography

Installation View, C. Rose Smith: A Silent Rage, On view in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery through January 8, 2026. Sasha Pedro Photography

Installation View, C. Rose Smith: A Silent Rage, On view in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery through January 8, 2026. Sasha Pedro Photography

Installation View, C. Rose Smith: A Silent Rage, On view in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery through January 8, 2026. Sasha Pedro Photography

Installation View, C. Rose Smith: A Silent Rage, On view in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery through January 8, 2026. Sasha Pedro Photography

ABOUT THE WOMEN’S STUDIES RESEARCH CENTER

The Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University is a hub of interdisciplinary exchange between scholars and artists, faculty and students, who conduct innovative research and create art with a focus on gender issues and women’s lives. Unique in its breadth of projects, the WSRC is part of a newly established national network of university-affiliated gender research institutes. As a convening space at the edge of campus, the center supports interdisciplinary dialogue, research, and art, and shares insights and discoveries with the university and the larger public.

The Kniznick Gallery is located in Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center: Epstein Building, 515 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453.