Alexandra Penney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, studied Philosophy at Smith College and received an MFA under critic Harold Rosenberg at Hunter College/CUNY in New York (1982). After graduating, she attended the Art Students League, studied painting under Norman Lewis and opened her own studio in New York.
She has worked extensively in the art and journalism worlds where she was a reporter for the New York Times Magazine, Editor in Chief of Self Magazine at Conde Nast where she conceived and executed the Pink Ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness. She has been an editor at Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler, and Glamour.
Her practice morphed from painting to photography after she collaborated with many distinguished photographers including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Duane Michals. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York and Europe and multiple times at Art Basel Miami. She has received a New York Foundation for the Arts grant (2009), and was honored as Artist Laureate at the National Parks Service (2009-11).
In addition, she has written several New York Timesbest-selling books, including How to Make Love to a Man (Crown, 1995, 3 million copies) Great Sex, (Putnam, 1998) The Baglady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All (Hachette Books, 2010) and the Flowers of Evil (photographs, forthcoming). She lives and works in New York City.