About
Rantoul spent the bulk of his career teaching photography, initially at the New England School of Photography in Boston in the 70s, then at Harvard University for thirteen years and was hired by Northeastern University in 1981 to head its new Photography Program, working his way up the ranks to tenure in 1988 and in 2004 was promoted to full professor. He retired in 2012. He is an emeritus professor at Northeastern.
Since retiring, Rantoul has remained active, making many new bodies of work and he has had numerous exhibitions. He now devotes his efforts full time to making new work and bringing earlier work to a national and international audience. Rantoul has work in practically all the permanent collections of museums in the New England region, including the MFA Boston, the Worcester Art Museum, The Addison Gallery of American Art, The RISD Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, among others. He has work in the Bibliothèque National in Paris and the Kunsthaus in Zurich as well.
There are many books of Neal Rantoul’s photography including American Series, published in 2005 which addresses his work in black and white up to 2005, Above, aerial photographs of Martha’s Vineyard, Paradise,photographs made after the devastating fires in Paradise, CA in 2019 and his newest book Neal Rantoul: The 8 x 10 Photographs, 1984-2005, published spring 2025.
Rantoul’s work has been represented by several galleries over his long career including, Panopticon Gallery in Boston, 555 Gallery in Boston and PhotoStop Gallery in White River Junction, Vermont.
In more recent years Rantoul has maintained an active exhibition schedule since moving to Acton, MA in 2020 with two shows at the Acton Senior Center and one at the Acton Library, and a one-man show of aerial photographs at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in 2021.
Neal Rantoul’s studio is in Acton and serves as the archive of his life’s work. He continues to teach, often works with students one-on-one, and has taught frequently at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, and was invited to teach a workshop at the Baer Center in Hofsos, Iceland in 2017. He also consults, particularly for Photography Departments seeking reaccreditation, and has served on many boards, including the Photographic Resource Center in Boston and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA.
Next up is a large exhibition of his work planned for September 2026 at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA.
Neal Rantoul can be reached by email at: nrantoul@comcast.net