Nancy Starrels (1921-1984) was born in Chicago. She graduated from the State University of Iowa, where her studies in philosophy and poetry began. In 1943 she came to New York and began her study of Aesthetic Realism with its founder, the poet and philosopher Eli Siegel. Her poetry appears in the book Personal & Impersonal: Six Aesthetic Realists (Terrain Gallery, 1959).), Poems by Sheldon Kranz, Louis Dienes, Nancy Starrels, Nat Herz, Martha Baird, Rebecca Fein; with a Critical Preface by Eli Siegel.
In 1966 she began taking photographs and later became a teacher of photography: first at the Hamilton Madison Settlement House on Catherine Street where she broke new ground by teaching aesthetics to children and teenagers. She was one of the Aesthetic Realism Photographers, an organization of professional photographers, educators and critics, which included Lou Bernstein whose work was in The Family of Man and Ralph Hattersley, editor of Infinity magazine. In 1976, she and David Bernstein, in honor of International Working Woman’s Year, organized their two-person exhibition illustrating Eli Siegel’s essay “A Woman Is a Oneness of Aesthetic Opposites,” which traveled throughout the tri-state area. . In 1980 she curated an exhibition of work by 50 photographers celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Terrain Gallery and Eli Siegel’s Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?
Nancy Starrels was Chairman of the Photography Department at Pratt-Phoenix School of Design from 1971-1976 and was Director of Photography at Henry Street Settlement from 1976-1981. She developed some of the most innovative and successful programs in the teaching of photography, including for Head Start children, parents and children together, and for young people with learning difficulties. Another pioneering class brought together seniors and Head Start children.Some of her students went on to win scholarships to Rochester Institute of Technology and their photographs appear in the Time-Life Photography Series. One of her students, James Cuebas, taught photography at Henry Street Settlement.
The people and buildings of the Lower East Side were important in her photography. For instance, when she heard that one of the oldest synagogues (on Attorney Street) was to be renovated, she went there and preserved in photographs the remaining original structure.
In 1981 she became a consultant to women on the faculty of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation. There she also taught two photography classes, one in darkroom techniques and “The Honoring Eye” (1977-1984) which had a big impact on the work of professional photographers and others. The basis of her photography and teaching was Eli Siegel's statement: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."
In her Portfolio in Camera 35, she wrote: “I believe that whenever beauty occurs it is because opposites, such as strength and gentleness, freedom and order, logic and emotion, have been made one, and that is what I try to show in my work.”
In public seminars and presentations at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, she talked about the lives and work of women and men in literature and the arts, for example, "The Greatness of Alfred Stieglitz," "The Gaiety of Jacques Henri Lartigue," and on Colette, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Diane Arbus, Georgia O'Keefe, and others.
She was an author and co-author of articles for Infinity, Camera 35, Popular Photography and other journals, and her story "Head Start Photographers" was published in New York State Art Teachers Association Bulletin. Portfolios of her work appeared in Camera 35 and Popular Photography.
In 1976 Nancy Starrels had a solo exhibition at the Hudson Park Library; and in 1985, the Terrain Gallery mounted a major retrospective of her work.
