Background
Deborah Irmas was born in 1950 in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Deborah Irmas was born in 1950 in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Irmas earned a BFA (1973) at the University of Southern California in her native city. She also attended Boston University, where she completed an MA (1975) and was a PhD candidate in Art History.
Irmas taught art history at Boston University (1974-75) and has been a lecturer in the history of photography at the University of California at Los Angeles since 1978. She was also the curator of two exhibitions: "Historical Photographs," from the Boni Collection, which she organized with Tom Barrow at the Frederick S. Wight Gallery at UCLA in 1975, and "The Photographic Magic of William Mortensen" (1979), sponsored by the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her professional experience includes coordinating a symposium, "Collecting Photography" (1978), at the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies and working as a picture editor for the college textbook division of Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich (1976-77). In addition, she is co-owner and director of Photologue International Inc., a worldwide source for photography exhibition catalogs through mail order.
She is also versed in nineteenth-century French photography.
Irmas belongs to SPE and the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies.