April Dawn Alison's Polaroid Self-Portraits Debut at SFMOMA After Posthumous Discovery

SFMOMA in San Francisco presented the first public exhibition of April Dawn Alison, the private alter ego of commercial photographer Alan Schaefer (1941–2008), from July 6 to December 1, 2019. The show featured over 9,200 Polaroid self-portraits created secretly over three decades, discovered after Schaefer's death by artist Andrew Masullo, who acquired them from an estate liquidator and donated the collection to the museum. These small-scale images, initially tentative in black-and-white from the late 1960s, evolved into confident, narrative-driven scenes with diverse costumes, wigs, and settings, including bondage-themed and domestic scenarios. Alison's work, undated and largely unsigned, displays a material fluency likely honed through Schaefer's commercial use of Polaroids for composition checks. While parallels exist with queer predecessors like Claude Cahun and Pierre Molinier, or contemporaries such as Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and Robert Mapplethorpe, it remains unclear if Alison drew direct inspiration. The exhibition sparked debate over displaying privately made art, yet highlights Alison's profound commitment to self-exploration without expectation of public view. ArtReview covered the show in its January & February 2020 issue, emphasizing the collection's vast, provocative nature and its charting of personal transformation through frippery and face-paint.