Renée Jacobs - Dreams from America - Signed - 2026

Signed Book
»Ulysses S. Grant, hero of the Civil War and eighteenth president of the United States, opened his memoirs of 1885 by writing: "My family is American, and it has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral". I am also American, but I traced those branches back to Europe by moving to France in November 2016.

"Dreams from America" is a collection of images that ranges from my first nude photograph, taken in Maine in 1980, to leaving the United States in 2016. In the interval between these two extremes, I worked as a photojournalist and, subsequently, as a lawyer specializing in civil rights and constitutional law. Most of these images date from the period between 2008 and 2016, a time of great optimism in the United States: a era of growing inclusivity, freedom and new possibilities, in which I sought beauty after leaving the legal profession.

My camera and my curiosity led me from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon; via Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Virginia and New York. But above all in California: Los Angeles, Malibu, Joshua Tree, San Francisco. These are the stories of the women I met along the way."
—Renée Jacobs