The Cincinnati Art Museum will soon debut the first-ever career retrospective on one of the nation’s most respected photographers.
“Nancy Rexroth: Secrets of My Power” is the first career retrospective on the work of the American photographer revered for her singular and evocative 1977 photobook “IOWA,” which Rexroth made in Ohio despite the name. It debuts at the Cincinnati Art Museum on October 2 and will run through January 3, 2027.
The exhibit will feature more than 150 photographs, ephemera and working materials—all rarely or never-before exhibited—as part of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of “IOWA.” It is also a featured exhibition for the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial, a biennial celebration of photography taking place all over the city.
Nancy Rexroth established her artistic voice in the late 1960s and 70s, as feminism, technical experimentation, new educational opportunities and increasing interest from institutions and collectors transformed the art photography scene.
While completing her MFA at Ohio University, Rexroth used a Diana camera (a low-tech device originally manufactured as a novelty) to create dream-like pictures in the small towns around Athens, Ohio. Realized through an evocative and often defiant artistic vision distinctly her own, Rexroth’s work expressed the complex emotional terrain of her life as she emerged into adult womanhood. The exhibition traces Rexroth’s career from her first photographs to her discovery of the Diana camera and a previously unknown engagement with self-portraiture, through her subsequent exploration of tools and processes into the early digital era.
“Nancy Rexroth is the kind of artist spoken of in hushed tones,” says the museum’s Curator of Photography, Nathaniel M. Stein, in a statement. “Her work has deeply personal significance for so many viewers—including me. An enigmatic figure for much of her 50+ year career, Rexroth’s photographs are physically small, but they speak with immense power about the arduousness and ecstasy of being alive. Ultimately, they are expressions of the artist’s will to exist.”
The exhibit marks the public debut of the museum’s unrivaled Nancy Rexroth Collection. Shortly after joining the museum in 2017, Stein began working closely with Rexroth, the Weinstein Hammons Gallery and the 1988 Rexroth Family Trust to explore how the museum could steward Rexroth’s legacy. In 2021, the Cincinnati Art Museum completed a multi-year acquisition encompassing more than 400 vintage prints, a nearly complete set of Diana camera images from the 1977 and 2017 editions of IOWA, unpublished photographs and more. Rexroth also donated her personal and professional papers to the museum’s Mary R. Schiff Library & Archives.
The exhibition will be on view to the public for free in the Thomas R. Schiff Galleries (234 and 235). No tickets will be required for the exhibition. For more information, visit the museum’s official website.
