Judy S. Gelles, accomplished artist, photographer, and filmmaker, dies at 75
Ms. Gelles began her artistic journey with a photo of her son David in his playpen. She became a visual diarist and created a unique project allowing children to say what they cared about.
Judy S. Gelles, 75, of Philadelphia, an accomplished artist, photographer, and filmmaker, died Saturday, March 14, of a ruptured brain aneurysm at Pennsylvania Hospital.
Ms. Gelles began her creative journey as a new mother in 1977 when she took a photography class at the Rhode Island School of Design.
“She told the teacher she wanted to take the perfect baby photo,” said son David. “One of her pieces actually shows that. It’s a picture of me in my playpen. She was a diarist, documenting her daily life as a young mother and an artist.”
Over the next 42 years, she let her curiosity and creativity roam in multimedia art projects that were unique in style and implementation.
Her best known is the “Fourth Grade Project,” which she conceived while volunteering at George Washington Elementary School. “She had kids take pictures of their lives and then write about their lives,” said her son. “They came alive with the work. No one had ever asked them to talk about their hopes and fears.”
One of her signature techniques was wrapping words around the figures pictured in photos.
That style provided the framework for a new venture in 2008, when Ms. Gelles began photographing and interviewing 300 fourth graders in the United States, China, England, India, Israel, Nicaragua, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. She continued the work until last year.
The principal in the first school she approached barred her from photographing the children’s faces for privacy reasons, so she took pictures from the back. She asked each: Whom do you live with? What do you wish for? What do you worry about?
The answers were inscribed around the youngsters’ images, forming a visual narrative that showed the private world of children. The idea was for each child to view the work and develop empathy and understanding across cultures.
“Nine-year-old children are on the cusp of adolescence,” Ms. Gelles said in a 2015 TEDx speech at the University of Pennsylvania. “They are able to think critically, and consider relationships to be very important. They are socially conscious, interested in helping others, and openly curious about the world.
“The project allows students to learn about others’ lives in a uniquely personal way and to use the project as a catalyst for their own explorations.”
The project, which blossomed into a teaching tool with its own curriculum, will go on a national tour for the next five years. The tour is underwritten by the nonprofit CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia.
In 2016, Ms. Gelles learned that one of the Fourth Grade Project photos was picked for display in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
“It’s definitely an honor to be included in the exhibit, especially for the Fourth Grade Project, because it’s not your typical frontal portrait,” she told The Inquirer.
In another project, Ms. Gelles decided to take a family portrait each year in the same spot when her family visited relatives in Melbourne Beach, Fla.
“My grandparents owned a mobile home there and my mother wanted to document the changes in our family over the years,” her son said in a eulogy. “We all hated standing around as she took the picture.
“And we made it hard on her. But she persisted. She was driven, committed, loving, and always pushing all of us creatively with her, on her next move.”
Ms. Gelles’ art is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1986, Ms. Gelles found the World War II letters of her deceased father-in-law, Sidney Gelles, hinting at anti-Semitism he had faced. Since he had never mentioned anti-Semitism, she grew curious and enlisted photographer Marianne Bernstein in a documentary to examine the experience of six Jews who served in the war.
The film, From Philadelphia to the Front, premiered in 2005 at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and garnered six awards in film festivals.
Born in Somersworth, N.H., she graduated from Somersworth High School at age 16, and Boston University in 1965. She married Dr. Richard J. Gelles in 1971.
Besides her husband and son, she is survived by son Jason nd three grandchildren.
Services were Monday, March 16.
Memorial donations may be made to the Fourth Grade Project of Culture Trust Greater Philadelphia via https://fourthgradeproject.com/donate/.