Lynn Goldsmith is an American photographer, filmmaker, director, and recording artist whose career has spanned more than five decades. Her portraits and documentary photographs have appeared in Life, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and many other international publications, examining identity, celebrity, beauty, and the human spirit.
Her subjects range from musicians and actors to athletes, writers, filmmakers, and people outside public life. Seventeen books of her photography have been published; New Kids reached The New York Times Best Seller list, and Patti Smith: Before Easter After was released by Rizzoli in 2024. Her work has received major honors including the Lucien Clergue Award, World Press recognition in portraiture, and the Lucie Award for Achievement in Portraiture.
Goldsmith’s creative practice extends well beyond still photography. She became the youngest woman admitted to the Directors Guild of America, directed ABC’s In Concert, founded an early agency dedicated to celebrity portraiture, and created the Will Powers recording project. In 2023, after a seven-year legal battle, she won a landmark 7–2 U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting visual artists’ rights.
