Congratulations to Joan — a wonderful photographer!

From a press release:

The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently purchased three of the photographs of women taken in the 1960s by Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret of Iowa City.

The three are silver prints of “Women’s Club Bowling,” “Bridesmaids” and “Grandmothers and Wedding Guests,” all taken in Cedar Rapids.

“Joan’s photographs offer a rare glimpse into the important civic activities of women during a historical period — all too recent — when their contributions to society were overlooked, if not invisible,” said David Little, curator of photography for the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “Joan captures the hidden labor and pleasure of women with a loving humor that just makes viewers smile.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has two of Bourret’s photographs in its collection: “Nan Wood Graham” and “The Junior League Christmas Party.”

The photographs in both museum collections were taken in Cedar Rapids except for the one of Graham, which was taken in her home in Riverside, Calif.

Ten of Bourret’s photographs are in the exhibition, “The Restless Spirit: American Art from the Collection,” opening Feb. 16, 2013, at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The museum has 261 of Bourret’s photographs in its collection, according to curator Sean Ulmer.

Many of Joan’s women photographs are in her autobiography, “Pictures and People: A Search for Visual Truth and Social Justice,” which won first place in the Benjamin Franklin Contest of the Independent Publishers of America last June.