Suzanne Opton

1945 - 2024

Suzanne Opton

Corinth, VT - Suzanne Opton, a pathbreaking photographer best known for her intimate portraits of U.S. soldiers between tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on July 26th, 2024, at her home in Corinth, Vermont, having survived breast cancer for 27 years.

Suzanne was a warm, kind, generous, intelligent, inquisitive and playful spirit with penetrating green eyes, always intriguing, drawing the devotion of myriad friends. Raised in Portland, Oregon, she graduated from Smith College in 1967. After apprenticing in commercial photography in Manhattan, she spent several years as a journalist and filmmaker in San Francisco and Los Angeles where, in 1970-71, she reported on the Charles Manson trial. In 1972-73 she spent a year in Chelsea, Vermont, befriending, recording the stories and taking photographs of old-timers who had lived their whole lives in one small community, later documented in her book INTO THE LIGHT CELLAR. She moved to New York City in 1973 and found her métier as a portraitist, photographing top executives and other public figures, often in unexpected poses, for the New York Times and magazines such as TIME, Newsweek, Fortune and Barron's.

Suzanne was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997. Following her diagnosis, she made a series of extraordinary photographs of nude middle-aged women, her friends, past perfection, incognito, posing with a variety of household objects, published in 2000 in her book LOOSE CHANGE. She traveled three times to India to be treated at an Ayurvedic hospital in Coimbatore, and while there she took stunning photographs at the hospital and at a traditional factory where Ayurvedic medicines were being made, later exhibited as a show entitled PHARMACY.

Her work drew the attention of the International Center for Photography (ICP), where for twenty years she taught the course "Playing with Portraits". Play, performance, and respect for her subjects were the common themes in all her work. Her two ground-breaking and controversial series of portraits of U.S. soldiers and veterans, SOLDIER and MANY WARS, brought her international acclaim. Photographs from the SOLDIER series were exhibited as billboards in cities across the U.S. in 2008-2010, prompting controversy and passionate debate and resulting in radio interviews and appearances around the country and abroad.

Suzanne was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, and grants from the NEA, the NYFA, and the Vermont Council of the Arts. Her work is in multiple permanent collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum, FOTOMUSEUM Winterthur, Photo Élisée, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Arts Museum, and the Library of Congress. A short documentary film featuring Suzanne, "Endlessly an Observer", was recently completed, and was shown at the Vermont Film Festival in Woodstock, Vermont, on the day she died.

Born on March 14th, 1945, in Portland, Oregon, to Peter F. and Claire C. Opton, who fled Germany in 1939, she was predeceased by her brother, Michael, and sister, Helen. She is survived by her life-partner Edward Cooper, her sister-in-law Jan Opton, her son and daughter-in-law Jules and Priscilla Opton, and her grandchildren Arlo and Ellis, who greatly brightened her last days.

Memorial celebrations of Suzanne's life will be held in Corinth, Vermont in October and in New York City in November, dates to be announced. Donations in her memory may be made to the Vermont Foodbank, at www.vtfoodbank.org/donate.