Shelby Lee Adams is an American photographer renowned for his environmental portraiture, primarily in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky. Adams's work has been featured in three monographs published by University Press of Mississippi: Appalachian Portraits (1993), Appalachian Legacy (1998) and Appalachian Lives (2003). In 2010 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Adams's work is represented in many major permanent collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the International Center of Photography in New York; Musee De L'Elysee Lausanne in Switzerland; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Time Life Collection, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Adams was also the subject of a 2002 documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal, The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams's Appalachia.
