Alice Wingwall

Sculptor, Photographer, Poet, and Visionary of the Unseen Alice Wingwall, a multidisciplinary artist best known for her profound ability to "see" through her
art long after losing her physical sight to retinitis pigmentosa, died peacefully in her home on February 13, 2026.

Born in Indianapolis and raised in Zionsville, Indiana, Alice graduated from Indiana University and obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from University of California, Berkeley. Alice founded the Sculpture program and served as Director of the Studio Arts program as a Professor at Wellesley College. Sculpture was Alice's earlier career focus, and she later moved into photography as her primary studio practice.

Alice was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a young woman and experienced a progressive loss of vision over her career. A member of the Blind Photographer's guild, Alice described her continued photography as "a radical choice, a political move. I was tired of people saying to me, 'How can you take a photograph when you can't see anything'? And I think they weren't asking me, they were telling me – 'How can you do this? It's unthinkable.' Well, I can do it. What I say to them is that the image starts in the brain." Alice's work has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, the San Francisco Exploratorium, the Oakland Art Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and in public art installations at Brown University and University of Oregon. Alice was the subject of the award-winning documentary Miss Blindsight: The Wingwall Auditions (2000), and was one of three artists featured in the 2015 documentary Shoulder the Lion.

Alice was a remarkably strong, curious, and passionate woman who defied expectations about who she should be and what she could do. Music was deeply important to her and her home was almost never without the sound of classical and other music. She served for many years as a board member for the Kronos Quartet and loved attending concerts of all kinds throughout the Bay Area.

Alice was known for her love of all shades of red, orange, and pink, and in keeping with her independent spirit, frequently wore all three together. She is survived by her husband of 62 years, Donlyn Lyndon, her sister Betsy Joyce, and brother Bill Atkinson, her three children and their spouses, Andrew (Leigh), Audrey (John), and Laura (Bridget), her five grandchildren, Nicholas, Isabel, Kenneth, Olive, and Ada, numerous nieces and nephews and her fourth guide dog, Buttercup. She was preceded in death by her sister Sally Hart.

The family will hold a private memorial on Saturday, March 21, with a public celebration of life to follow in the fall. In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to Guide Dogs for the Blind, Creative Growth, the Kronos Quartet, or the charity of your choice.