Prize-Winning Photojournalist Audrey Ronning Topping's Exhibition on Display at Adelphi University

Adelphi University is pleased to welcome prize-winning photojournalist Audrey Ronning Topping for a gallery talk and reception on Tuesday, September 11, 2007, at 5:30 p.m. in Adelphi’s Ruth S. Harley University Center Gallery, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. The accompanying exhibition, “The Colors of the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” will run from Tuesday, August 28, 2007 through Wednesday, September 26, 2007. The gallery talk, reception, and exhibition are free and open to the public.

In her exhibition, Mrs. Topping shares her journey of rarely seen parts of Asia inspired by her travels to Bhutan and Vietnam. In 2002, she was invited by the Tulku or High Lama of the Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan to visit his remote Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan mountains and photograph a sacred lama dance festival, as well as  areas of the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon.  Her exhibition also includes images of Vietnam, taken in 2005, when she and her husband, Seymour, former correspondent and managing editor of the New York Times, returned to where they had been stationed as journalists during the French Indochina War in the 1950s and the American War in the 1960s.

Mrs. Topping has exhibited her photos and lectured in numerous museums, galleries, and universities, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hallmark Gallery, Overseas Press Club, Explorers Club, Harvard University, Katonah Gallery of Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Westchester Community College, and the Art Gallery of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The author of six books, Mrs. Topping’s articles and photographs have been printed in major publications in the United States and abroad, including the New York Times, National Geographic, Life, Time, Reader’s Digest, Science Digest,Newsweek, Geographica Universal (Brazil), Toronto Star, Harper’s Bazaar, Art in America, and Foreign Affairs, among others.

In 1975, Mrs. Topping broke the news of the archeological discovery of more than 7,000 life-size terracotta warriors buried with China’s First Emperor in 221 B.C. Four years prior to that event, National Geographic had published a 36-page cover story of her work, “Return to Changing China,” based on her first assignment in China as a photojournalist for the New York Times. Since then, she has returned to Asia a dozen times on journalistic assignments, including journeys to Tibet, Xingjan, and Inner Mongolia.

In 2000, Mrs. Topping and her husband were awarded the first annual Greenway-Winship Award for their significant contribution to a better understanding of world affairs. She is a member of The Council of Foreign Affairs, Asia Society, and the Society of Women Geographers. The Toppings have five daughters, and live in Scarsdale, New York.

Mrs. Topping attended the University of Nanking, China and the University of British Columbia, and she received an honorary doctor of arts degree from Rider College, New Jersey. She studied sculpture in Berlin and London, where she exhibited her works at The Royal Institute Gallery.

The University Center Gallery is open Sunday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. through 9:00 p.m.