James Welling was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1951 and studied art at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the West Hartford Art League, Carnegie Mellon University, and the California Institute of the Arts, where he received his MFA in 1974. His work has been the subject of survey exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Fotomuseum Winterthur; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Cincinnati Art Museum. His books include James Welling / The Mind on Fire, James Welling: Monograph, Glass House, and Light Sources. In 2014, he received the International Center for Photography’s 2014 Infinity Award in Art and he received the 1999 DG BANK-Förderpreis Fotografie from the Sprengel Museum in Hannover. He is professor in the Department of Art at University of California, Los Angeles.