Penny Wolin

Penny Wolin (born June 5, 1953), also known as Penny Diane Wolin and Penny Wolin-Semple, is an American portrait photographer and a visual anthropologist. She has exhibited solo at the Smithsonian Institution and is the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and one grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is held in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the National Museum of American History, administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Known for her documentary and conceptual photographs, she has completed commissions for major corporations, national magazines and private collectors. For the past 25 years, she has used photographic portraiture with oral interviews to research Jewish civilization in America.

Wolin is the youngest of five children born into a Jewish family in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Her father, Morris Aaron Wolin (ne Wolinsky) immigrated there as a child, directly from the Russian town of Grodno, later to become a businessman. Her mother, Helen Sobol Wolin, came from Denver, Colorado, and was an artist. At age 10, Penny began using a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. At age 16, her brother Michael Wolin gave her a high quality rangefinder camera and the necessary darkroom equipment to begin a career.

Wolin attended the University of Wyoming and then was graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, majoring in photography and film. She also attended a Masters' program in the department of cultural anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, under the mentorship of Cultural Anthropologist Johannes Wilbert. She was then awarded a directing fellowship to the American Film Institute, Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies.

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