Wilson, Laura, 1939-

Photojournalist Laura Wilson was born in 1939 and raised in New England. She married author, editor, and entrepreneur Robert A. Wilson, with whom she has three sons, Andrew, Owen, and Luke.

Always interested in photography and photojournalism, Wilson photographed her sons throughout their childhoods, and pored over books by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Henri Lartigue, and Eugene Smith. Her professional career began in 1978 when she met photographer Richard Avedon through her husband's involvement with the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Wilson worked as an assistant to Avedon from 1979 to 1984 while he embarked on the project that culminated in his landmark exhibition In the American West at the Amon Carter Museum, and a book of the same title, in 1985. While in the field, Wilson documented their progress both on paper and film, and in 2003 she published a recollection of their experiences in Avedon at Work: In the American West .

Since her time with Avedon, Wilson has gained a reputation of her own working as a photojournalist. Her projects have taken her from photographing the life of a West Texas rancher, Watt Matthews, to capturing life in the Hutterite colonies of Montana over a fourteen-year period.

Wilson is the author of several books including Watt Matthews of Lambshead (1989), Hutterites of Montana (2000), and Grit and Glory: Six-Man Football (2003). Her work has been published in numerous magazines including Aperture, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the Washington Post Magazine, Texas Monthly, and the Sunday Times (London). She and her husband reside in Dallas, Texas.

From the guide to the Laura Wilson Papers and Photographs, 1979-2004, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)