Gay Block

As a portrait photographer, Gay Block began in 1973 with portraits of her own affluent Jewish community in Houston and later expanded this study to include South Miami Beach and girls at summer camp. Her landmark work with writer Malka Drucker, RESCUERS: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, both a book and traveling exhibit, has been seen in over fifty venues in the US and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, in 1992. In 2003 Block’s 30-year portrait of her mother in photographs, video, and words, Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, was published by UNM Press and began as a traveling exhibit. Also published in 2003 by Skylight Paths is another collaboration with Drucker, White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America. In 2006, Block re-photographed women who were girls in her 1981 series from Camp Pinecliffe, twenty-five years before. Block’s photographs are included in museums and private collections including MoMA New York, San Francisco MoMA, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.