Art Emeritus Faculty

J. Tomas Lopez

Professor Emeritus In Art and Art History

 J. Tomás López is a Cuban‑American photographic artist and longtime professor at the University of Miami, known for more than 50 years of work exploring identity, trauma, history, and the human condition through portraiture and experimental photographic processes.

Key Contributions & Artistic Focus

• Faces of AIDS (1980s) — An internationally recognized series documenting people living with AIDS, focusing intensely on the eyes as a site of truth and vulnerability. This work earned global attention for its emotional and socio‑historical impact.
• Infrared portraiture & underwater photography — López is known for using infrared film to create haunting, symbolic images, including underwater nudes and diptychs of people dying of AIDS. These works appear in major museum collections such as the George Eastman House, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Library of Congress.
• Immigrant identity & displacement — His own experience as a Cuban immigrant informs much of his work, especially projects documenting Sephardi Jews and other displaced communities.
• Large-scale political iconography — López has produced politically charged U.S. and Cuban flag artworks collected by museums and private collectors.
• Portrait Series (2020) — Exhibited at the Lowe Museum, this series explores the “retina of time,” using portraiture to examine identity, memory, and the shifting meaning of photographic representation.

Academic Career

• Professor Emeritus, Department of Art & Art History, University of Miami.
• Degrees in Psychology and Philosophy (Fordham University), MMA in Film/Video, and MFA in Photography & Modernist Theory.
• Studied with Ansel Adams (1976–1977), which deeply shaped his technical and conceptual approach.
• Has taught photography since 1977, emphasizing photography as storytelling, history-making, and personal narrative.

Exhibitions & Collections

López’s work has appeared in over 400 group exhibitions and 42 solo exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Major institutions holding his work include:

• Smithsonian Institution
• Museum of Modern Art (NY)
• International Museum of Photography
• Bibliothèque Nationale de France
• Library of Congress 

Publications

He contributed to major reference works, including:

• Focal Encyclopedia of Photography (4th Edition)
• The Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography

Why He Matters

López is a significant figure in American photography because he bridges documentary, psychological, and experimental approaches. His work often deals with people in moments of crisis or transition—AIDS patients, immigrants, refugees—using photography as a tool for empathy, memory, and historical witness.

Email: tomlopez@miami.edu
Instagram- jtomaslopezphoto
J Tomas Lopez Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jtomas.lopez.3

Lise Drost

Professor Emeritus In Art and Art History

Lise Drost taught at the University of Miami from 1993 to 2025 where she was the head of Printmaking; she also served in multiple service positions including freshman advisor, gallery director, graduate director and department chair, and 2D area coordinator. She oversaw the relocation of all the department’s studio facilities during her time there, to their current locations on campus on Levante Avenue.

Drost received her BFA from Florida International University in 1980 and MFA (in Printmaking) from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1983. She has received two Florida Individual Artist Grants, 13 University of Miami Research Support Awards and, most recently, two Miami Individual Artist Grants.

Drost works in Silkscreen, Lithography, Relief Printing and Etching, making both editions and unique pieces which are combined with painting and collage: the scale of the works ranges up to 60 x 120 inches.

Her selected solo exhibitions include the Deland Museum, the Polk Museum, and the Lowe Art Museum (all in Florida); Miriam Perlman Gallery in Chicago, the University of Dallas, and Bird in Hand Gallery in Washington D.C. She has been in more than 50 curated print exchanges, and 300 group invitational and juried exhibitions. Drost has works in many public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Denver Art Museum. She received grants to have prints published and added to the collections at Island Press at Washington University in St. Louis, Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia and Flatstone Studio at Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota.

Email: l.drost@miami.edu
Website: www.lisedrost.com
Instagram: @lisedrostart