Michael Abramson

Michael Abramson was born in NJ and graduated from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. After graduation, he discovered his love of photography and in 1974 moved to Chicago to study photography at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he received his master's in design in 1977. Michael stayed in Chicago until his death in March, 2011. The rest of this biography are the words of Chicago Tribune journalist Rick Kogan, who wrote Michael's obituary: Dashing, worldly, and wildly talented, Michael Abramson fit the conventional image of a globe-trotting photographer, and indeed much of his career was spent in exotic climes, and photographing well-known people. But later in life, he gained his greatest fame,critical acclaim, and personal satisfaction by publishing in book form photographs he shot on Chicago's South side over nearly three years in the mid-1970s. "Light on the South Side," published by Chicago-based Numero Group in 2009 and is a handsome package with nearly 100 of the thousands of photography Mr. Abramson shot. It is also accompanied by two albums of music of the era, and was nominated for a Grammy and its British counterpart, a Mojo. A commercial portrait photographer and photojournalist, Mr. Abramson followed his work to Indonesia, France, Cuba, Argentina, Greece, the Netherlands, and Puerto Rico. His subjects included Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Donald Rumsfield, Louis Farrakhan, Ron Howard, and Michael Jordan. His photographs were featured in publications including The New York Times, Fortune, People, Time, Businessweek, Forbes, and Sports Illustrated. His work is int he permanent collections of the Smithsonian, Art Institute of Chicago, California Museum of Photography, Chicago History Museum, and Milwaukee Art Museum.