Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, editor, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. She received a BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, influenced by California artists such as John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha. After a career as a New York Fashion Editor, working alongside some the greats of fashion photography, Smithson returned to Los Angeles and her own artistic practice.
She has exhibited widely with exhibitions at institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Santa Barbara Art Museum, and the Haslla Art Museum in South Korea. In addition, her work is held in major public collections and her photographs have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN (cover), the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, and Harper’s,
Smithson is the Founder and Editor- in-Chief of Lenscratch, a daily journal on photography. She has been an educator at institutions around the globe since 2001. Smithson received the Rising Star Award through the Griffin Museum of Photography for her contributions to the photographic community and she also received the prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award from CENTER. In 2022, the Lucie Foundation nominated her for Photo Educator of the Year. In 2024, the Los Angeles Center of Photography established the Aline Smithson Next Generation Award.
The Magenta Foundation published her first significant monograph, Self & Others: Portrait as Autobiography. In 2016, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commissioned Smithson to a series of portraits for the Faces of Our Planet Exhibition. In 2018 and in 2019, her work was selected as a finalist in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 2019, Kris Graves Projects commissioned her to create the book LOST II: Los Angeles that is now sold out. Peanut Press Publishing released her monograph, Fugue State in Fall of 2022, also sold out. Her books are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, among others. In 2022, Smithson was honored as a Hassleblad Heroine. In 2025, her work was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50 portfolios. With the exception of her iPhone, she only shoots film.