About

Elizabeth Anne Solaka grew up in Lafayette Park in downtown Detroit. As a little girl, she swam in the rooftop pool on the parking structure between twin Ludwig Mies van der Rohe towers where she lived. She sat at the checkout counter of her father’s immigrant grocery store, swinging her feet and eating King Cones that she grabbed from the freezer. At night, her mom would bring her to their family-owned blues bar, The Soup Kitchen Saloon. One night, she played piano beside blues legend Willie Dixon while the crowd danced on tables. Then she became an artist.

Elizabeth is a photographer based in New York and works with medium and large format film, natural light, and darkroom processes. She is drawn to the tonal beauty and intimacy of the slower photographic process and has been consistently working for the last three decades.

She is often invited to photograph families including grandparents, artists, actors, cultural figures, and scientists. She also has a robust street photography and fine art practice.

Her photography has appeared in The New York Times and Elle Magazine and more. Her work has been exhibited in Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Berlin, and New York.

She has worked for years with the Hall Art Foundation, Sotheby’s, Gagosian Gallery, Columbia University, New York University, Smith College, the Myles Group, and the Center for Jewish History. She has lived in Paris, Berlin, Boston, Northern California, Western Massachusetts, and Los Angeles. New York has remained her primary creative base since 2003, with periods living and working in California and Western Massachusetts shaping her practice.