Ingeborg Gerdes was born in Germany and has been in the US since 1965. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and was a lecturer in photography at the University of California Santa Cruz from 1981-2006. Her work is held in the various public collections including: California Historical Society, Fogg Art Museum, Norton Simon Museum, Portland Art Museum, SFMOMA, Smith College Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Whatcom Museum of History and Art.