Ann Rosen (b. Brooklyn) is a New Jersey-based artist known for her social justice projects using portrait photography as a tool for empowerment and empathy. In Rosen’s current project, Being Seen, she teaches art and photography workshops with women from marginalized communities such as shelters, formerly homeless Veterans, recovering addicts, formerly incarcerated.


Rosen graduated from SUNY at Buffalo (BFA) and the Visual Studies Workshop (MFA), studying with Nathan Lyons, Joan Lyons and John Wood. Her influences are stark B&W and color portraits by Paul Strand, Diane Arbus and Duane Michals.


She has received multiple grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council and Puffin Foundation and has participated in residencies at Visual Studies Workshop; Mauser Foundation, Costa Rica; 360 Xochi Quetzal, Mexico; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; and Henry Street Settlement.

Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at venues including: Cepa Gallery (Buffalo, NY), Five Myles Gallery (NYC), Webster University (Webster Groves, MO), Franklin Furnace (NYC), NYC Public Library, Grand Army Plaza (NYC), and Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison, NJ). She has been included in recent group exhibitions at Burchfield-Penney Art Center (Buffalo, NY), Brooklyn Museum of Art (NYC), Museum of the City of New York (NYC), and Henry Street Settlement (NYC). Her work has been featured in the Village Voice, The New York Times, Newark Sunday Star Ledger, Brooklyn Courier, Pfizer Journal, and the 11th Annual Brooklyn Pride Magazine.


Rosen’s social justice projects, In the Presence of Family: Brooklyn Portraits and Revisiting in the Presence of Family, documented families at street fairs highlighting biracial adoption, LGBTQ parenting and intermarriage, then revisited those families ten years later. These projects are permanently housed in the Brooklyn History Collection with books in the library collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and ICP, NY. Rosen’s photographs are also in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art Library, NYC; Albright-Knox Gallery and Library, Buffalo, NY; and Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY.


In 2024, Rosen curated Capturing Dignity at El Barrio ArtSpace PS109, which featured five women photographers exploring themes of community, portraiture, and dignity in their work. The exhibition was featured in the Daily News.