Arno Rafael Minkkinen

The retrospective survey SAGA premiered at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA, in 2005. The 120-print retrospective toured to Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Italy, China, and Canada. Minkkinen was made a Knight of the Order of the Lion of Finland of the first class by the Finnish government in 1992, and awarded the Finnish State Art Prize in Photography in 2006.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen studied at Wagner College and Rhode Island School of Design. The recorded working language is Finno-Ugric. Places of work recorded in the authority are United States. Employment is recorded with University of Massachusetts Lowell and Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Work by Arno Rafael Minkkinen is recorded in the collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Finnish National Gallery, National Gallery of Canada and City of Pori art collection. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland and Knight First Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

• Name — Arno Rafael Minkkinen • Born — 4 June 1945 • Birthplace — Helsinki, Finland • Education — Wagner College Rhode Island School of Design • Occupation — Photographer • Honours — Order of the Lion of Finland (Knight, First Class)

Minkkinen was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1945 and emigrated to the United States in 1951. He graduated from Wagner College with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, and began taking self-portraits in 1971, while working as an advertising copywriter on Madison Avenue in New York. He later studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at Rhode Island School of Design and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in photography in 1974.

Over the past four decades, Minkkinen has been engaged as a teacher, curator, and writer while continuing to devote his photographic research and energies to the self-portrait.

Since 2009, Minkkinen has developed a growing interest in feature filmmaking and screenwriting. In 2010, he received a first round of support from the Finnish Film Foundation for a screenplay he had written and will be directing. Filming was planned in Finnish Karelia and Finntown, Brooklyn. The demo preview of The Rain House was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in connection with the Dance Films Association's 41st Dance on Camera Festival (2013). As of 2021 the film was in the making.

• Frostbite. Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York.. • New American Nudes: Recent Trends & Attitudes. Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, NY. MIT Creative Photography Gallery. • Elegant Intimacy. Retretti Art Center, Punkaharju, Finland. With J. H. Lartigue and Sally Mann. Also Harry Callahan, Emmet Gowin, Claude Batho, Yves Tremorin, Roman Vishniac, and Alfred Stieglitz. • Waterline. Marval, Paris; Otava, Helsinki; Aperture, New York, 1993.. Grand Prix du Livre, 25th Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival. • The Waterline Portfolio. Aperture Foundation. • Ten Minutes Past Midnight. Musta Taide, Helsinki, Finland. • Body Land. (Motta, Milan, 1997; Nathan, Paris, 1988), Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1999.. • SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Thirty Years of Photographs. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2005.. Essay by A. D. Coleman. • Swimming in the Air. Cavallo Point at Golden Gate National Park, San Francisco. • SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen. SEE+ Art Space Gallery, Beijing. • Homework / Suomen Kuvat, The Finnish Photographs of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 1973 to 2008. Like Publishing, Helsinki, 2008.. • Arno Rafael Minkkinen. See+ Art Space Gallery. Beijing, China. 30 postcards in book form. • Balanced Equation. Lodima Press Portfolio Series.

• Timo Laaksonen and Arno Rafael Minkkinen. In Spirit of the Masters. Keravan Taidomuseo 2000.. He is co-editor and has images included.

• Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, Frostbite, Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York. 1981. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, New American Nudes: Recent Trends & Attitudes, Morgan & Morgan, Dobbs Ferry, New York. 1981. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "From the Prow." Finnice, Camera International. 1991. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "The Lens of Love," Elegant Intimacy, Retretti Art Center, Punkaharju, Finland. 1993. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, Waterline Marval (Paris), Aperture (New York), Otava (Helsinki), 1994. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Baudelaire's Brow, Reflections on the photographs of Karin Rosenthal. Karin Rosenthal, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Massachusetts. 2000. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Take Out My Eyes," In the Spirit of the Masters, Kerava Art Museum, Kerava, Finland, 2000. pp. 66–79. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "Treasures of the Moment: Thirty years of Polaroid Photography in Boston, Photography in Boston 1955–1985, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000. Chapter text pp. 135–153. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael, "First Frames First." exposure, Society for Photographic Education. Vol. 35. Fall 2001. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. Balanced Equation. Lodima Press, Revere, Pennsylvania, 2010. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "Faith in Happenstance." American Faith. Photographs by Christopher Churchill. Nazraeli Press, Portland, 2011. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "The Morning of Childhood." Faces. Photographs by William Ropp. Maison européenne de la photographie, 2011. • Minkkinen, Arno Rafael. "The Horsepower of Desire." Surrounded by No One. Photographs by Margaret M. de Lange. Trolley Books, London, 2011.