LANIE KLEIN

Elaine (Lanie) Klein is an award-winning American photographer currently living and working in Jerusalem. 

Klein’s practice is rooted in a deep curiosity about the human condition. Through her lens, she explores the intersections of power, vulnerability, and gender, seeking to illuminate both the resilience and agency of women and the barriers that shape lived realities. 

Lanie’s current series, WOMAN. STILL LIFE, pushes the boundaries of the still life genre and simultaneously examines the historical use of women in art and later in advertising as object, both sexual and otherwise. 

In her words: “Women were most often presented as passive objects of the male gaze, often in sensual or erotic poses. I have taken the genre of still life, historically defined by its absence of the human form, and inserted women into the frames as objects. The series of staged images, reminiscent of paintings, fosters a dialogue with the art of the past. The female forms play with the idea of object as they gaze towards the viewer and away, raising questions as to what exactly creates the objectification, and how much the gaze plays a part. 

Klein earned a BA from Barnard College and an MA from Columbia University in New York before pursuing an independent artistic career.

Her work has received international recognition in competitions including AAP, LensCulture, the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, the Sony World Photography Awards, and the International Color Awards. Klein has exhibited widely, with recent highlights including a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Artists House (2024) and group exhibitions at the Naggar School of Art, Jerusalem (2021), ICCY Jerusalem (2017), and Aaron Faber Gallery, New York (1986). Her photographs are held in the collection of the Yeshiva University Museum in New York as well as in private collections worldwide.