Abelardo Morell was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948. He immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1962. Morell received his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and his MFA from The Yale University School of Art. He has received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College in 1997 and from Lesley University in 2014.
His publications include: A photographic illustration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1998) by Dutton Children’s Books; A Camera in a Room (1995) by Smithsonian Press; A Book of Books (2002) and Camera Obscura (2004) published by Bulfinch Press; Abelardo Morell (2005), published by Phaidon Press; The Universe Next Door (2013), published by The Art Institute of Chicago; Tent-Camera (2017) published by Nazraeli Press. His newest body of work Flowers for Lisa will be published by Abrams in the Fall of 2018.
He has received a number of awards and grants, which include a Guggenheim fellowship in 1994 and an Infinity Award in Art from ICP in 2011. In November 2017, he received a Lucie Award for an achievement in fine art.
His work has been collected and shown in many galleries, institutions and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, The Chicago Art Institute, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Houston Museum of Art, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Victoria & Albert Museum and over seventy other museums in the United States and abroad. A retrospective of his work organized jointly by the Art Institute of Chicago, The Getty in Los Angeles and The High Museum in Atlanta closed in May 2014 after a year of travel. He currently has a show at Rose Gallery in Santa Monica, CA on view until January 27, 2018 featuring his series After Constable.