Cig Harvey

Azaleas Pressing, Rockport, Maine, 2018

Cig Harvey Biography Cig Harvey is a British-born photographer and writer known for her vivid, large-scale color photographs and evocative storytelling. Based in Maine, Harvey explores themes of memory, family, and the sensory experience of everyday life, blending photography with creative nonfiction. Her work is rich in implied narrative, deeply rooted in the natural world and devoted to the topic of what it is to feel. Born in the United Kingdom, Cig Harvey moved to the United States and has built an acclaimed career in fine art photography. Her journey as a photographer has been shaped by a lifelong fascination with storytelling and visual poetry. Harvey currently lives and works in Maine with her husband Doug and daughter Scout, where the changing seasons and rural landscape influence her artistic practice. Cig Harvey has published five sold out books: You Look At Me Like An Emergency (2012), Gardening At Night (2015), You An Orchestra You A Bomb (2017), Reveal (2020, with Andrea Modica & Debbie Fleming Caffrey), and Blue Violet (2021), which is now in its fifth printing. Her latest book, Emerald Drifters will be published by Monacelli / Phaidon in Spring 2025. Beyond the page, Cig Harvey was the subject of Eat Flowers, an award-winning 2023 documentary film by River Finlay, which premiered at major festivals, earning accolades such as the Special Jury Prize at the Santa Fe International Film Festival and the Audience Award at Indy Shorts. Harvey’s editorial contributions appear in The New York Times, and she is a member of the National Press Photographers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. Cig Harvey’s photographs and books are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Library of Congress; Yale University; the Farnsworth Art Museum; and the George Eastman Museum, among others. Her solo exhibitions include a mid-career retrospective at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (2019) and installations at Fotografiska Stockholm (2023), Fotografiska Tallinn, and Fotografiska New York (2024). Harvey has received numerous awards, including the 2018 Prix Virginia Laureate, the 2021 Maine in America Award from the Farnsworth Art Museum, and the 2023 Visionary Award from Maine Media. In addition to her visual work, Cig Harvey is a celebrated writer whose essays and reflections on creativity, motherhood, and the natural world have appeared in national publications and speaking engagements. Her cross-disciplinary approach has made her a standout figure in both the literary and photography worlds, further solidifying her reputation as a boundary-pushing artist with a distinctive voice. Jackson Fine Art has proudly featured Cig Harvey in four exhibitions since 2017, including the group show 30 Years of Women (2020) and, the solo exhibitions Eat Flowers (2021), and the upcoming Emerald Drifters (2025). Through this ongoing collaboration, Jackson Fine Art continues to champion Cig Harvey and her distinct, poetic vision in contemporary art.