Rose Bishop is a historian and curator of photography. She is a fourth year PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Southern California, and a recipient of the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate. She studies the production, circulation, and display of photography in the United States from the 19th century to the present, with a particular focus on the intersecting histories of print media, photojournalism, and fashion photography. Her dissertation, “Idol Makers, Picture Takers: Snapshots of American Popular Music, 1944-2007,” charts the rise of professional music photography, examining how this distinct sector of the entertainment industry emerged from and was shaped by the vernacular photographic practices of fans. This project seeks to enrich our material understanding of how music photography has addressed questions including what it means to document live performance, the nature of idolatry, the collaborative processes of commercial production, and the economic potential of large image archives.

 

Bishop’s work has been published in Transbordeur, ArtForum, and in the catalogues 125: Photography in Harlem (Hirmer Verlag with Hunter East Harlem Gallery, 2022) and Historical Photobooks by Women: 1843–1999  (10x10 Photobooks, 2021). Her research on fan photographer Gordon “Doc” Anderson was the subject of a 2023 documentary series produced by The Apollo Theater. 

 

Prior to her graduate studies at USC, Bishop received her master’s degree in Art History and Curatorial Studies from Hunter College in 2021. Her thesis, “Girl In Action: Junior Bazaar, 1945-1948,” — on the short-lived teen magazine that launched the careers of Richard Avedon, Robert Franks, Lilian Bassman and other influential  photographers — was awarded departmental distinction. In May 2020 her article, "Blank Space: SC192 and the Robert Rauschenberg Study Collection,” was awarded first prize in the Paul LeClerc Competition for Best Research Paper by the Hunter College Libraries, and was later published online by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in October 2021. She received a BA in Art History from Kenyon College in 2017. 

 

While obtaining her MA at Hunter College between 2018-2021, Bishop worked as an archivist and researcher at the Richard Avedon Foundation, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, and Almine Rech. Upon completing her PhD in May 2027, she aims to pursue a career as a curator of photography and/or public history.