Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Catherine Opie: A Study of Blue Mountains, a solo exhibition of new photographs and ceramic sculptures by the Los Angeles-based artist, on view April 3–May 31, 2025 in New York. Opie’s latest exhibition marks the New York debut of the artist’s Norwegian Mountain series, her newest body of work to date. The works, the artist has noted, are a meditation on “how the history of blue is used in art…about blue as a mourning as the planet changes so rapidly.” Looking at color and landscape, Opie imbues the images in A Study of Blue Mountains with a sense of the sublime.

This exhibition at Lehmann Maupin comes on the heels of the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Brazil, Catherine Opie: Genre/Gender/Portraiture, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Artistic Director, and Guilherme Giufrida, Assistant Curator, which closed last fall at The Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). Catherine Opie: A Study of Blue Mountains precedes an exhibition of the Norwegian Mountain series at the Posten Moderne in Trondheim, Norway, as well as a major solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in London, both opening in 2026.

For over four decades, Opie has been celebrated for her intimate portraiture and exploration of community and identity. Landscape has also been a central focus of her practice, spanning urban freeways, strip malls, Pacific Ocean surfers, and frozen Minnesota lakes, each reflecting her broader engagement with place and belonging. In this new body of work, Opie looks to the Norwegian landscape—long a source of inspiration for the artist—creating a powerful study of the rich range of blues found in the gradient variations within the Northern sky and the cascade of light blanketing the region's most majestic mountains. Opie’s images emphasize a deeper, more personal interpretation of the color’s effect, in which the blue mountains symbolize an ascendance toward nature, and in turn, the power, grandeur, and change to nature itself.