About

Sonja Rieger was born 1953 in Ansbach, Germany and grew up in the Northeastern United States. In 1979 she landed in Alabama in order to take a position at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, an event that changed the course of her life. She is a photographer who is interested in the look of a place, in light quality and in how history, culture, and politics leave a mark on a people and a place. She has explored this in photographs and projects in the American South.

Sonja Rieger’s work is in national and international collections, most recently six photographs were placed in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s permanent collection and a portfolio of 18 prints were acquired by the Centro de Arte Alcobendes in Madrid. Her work is in the collections of the 21st Century Museum Hotel, the former International Polaroid Corporation, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Huntsville Museum of Art, Fidelity Investment and other corporate and private collections.

Rieger is a Lucie Foundation Finalist and Short List Recipient, and a USA Artists Fellowship Nominee. She is a recipient of the SECAC Artist Fellowship Grant, and two Individual Artist Grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, Rieger has also received grants for projects from the Polaroid Corporation, the Southern Arts Federation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

She has exhibited widely at regional and national venues including at Basel Miami 2023, and the International Fine Print Dealers Association, 2022, with Dorianne Samuels Fine Art; at the Carmen Wiedenhoeft Gallery in Denver, Colorado, highlighted during Denver's month of photography; the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, during White Linen Nights; the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston Salem, North Carolina; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art; and the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Gallery exhibitions of note are the A.I.R. Gallery, White Columns and the Sherry French Gallery, in New York; at the Jones Troyer Fitzpatrick Gallery, and the Martin Gallery in Washington D.C., at the Fotogalerie Bordenau in Frankfurt, Germany; and in Hitachi, Ibaragiken Japan

Rieger received her MFA from Rutgers University, her BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and became a Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1979. In addition, she served as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History.

She is represented by Maus Contemporary in Birmingham, Alabama.