This catalog explores coming of age and the poetry of everyday life in stunning photographs and intimate portraits.

Sherrie Nickol: Chrysalis brings together Sherrie Nickol’s earliest photographs, made in the late 1970s and largely unseen for nearly half a century. Shot on film and in natural light, these intimate images focus on young women in moments of reverie, solitude, and quiet self-possession, alongside photographs of the American South where Nickol grew up.

The publication offers a portrait of youth and female experience in late-1970s America. Nickol’s photographs of young women capture a generation navigating identity, independence, and the transformation into adulthood, while her images of the American South—particularly Osceola, Arkansas, the Mississippi Delta, and New Orleans—evoke the communities, landscapes, and social realities that shaped her own perspective. Together, these images form an intimate portrait of American life.