Leslie Lyman’s photographs and installations focus on the everyday lives and objects of women. She is particularly drawn to the unrecorded hidden work, stories, and material culture of women throughout history. Inspired by the Picture Gallery setting at Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, where the home, garden, art works and studios of Augustus Saint-Gaudens are preserved and presented, Lyman addresses the “work beneath the work,” as she alludes to the nurturing and caregiving provided by the artist’s wife, Augusta, to support the sculptor’s career.

A thoughtful selection of objects and settings – old and new – suggest stories to be passed on. Lyman’s practice is one of deliberate documentation, intended to increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the enduring and necessary labor of nurturing that helps bring a work of art to fruition. She states “We know how to celebrate the accomplished artist, the visionary genius. We often forget to recognize the labor of others. If biographies truly told artists’ stories, they all would begin by asking: who helped you?”