Gary Samson is the 7th Artist Laureate of New Hampshire and has spent the last fifty years photographically documenting the people and cultures of Ghana, Guatemala, Greece, Russia, Peru, Ireland, Belize, France, Quebec, Nova Scotia as well as Texas and Louisiana. Gary’s work has been exhibited internationally and his photographs are in numerous collections including the Currier Museum of Art; the University of New Hampshire; the Library of Congress, Washington, DC and the New Hampshire institute of Art where he taught photography for thirty-six years. 

After making a film about the life of the great German photographer Lotte Jacobi in 1978, Gary was inspired to explore portrait photography in his own work, making portraits of New Hampshire artists and writers as well as documenting the ethnic diversity of the state. Over the years, Gary has received numerous awards for his work and continues to make environmental portraits of the people of New Hampshire.