Stephanie Pfriender Stylander was born in New York and apprenticed under the celebrated photographer Art Kane after becoming inspired by the photographers she observed at rock and roll concerts. She began photographing fashion for editorial clients such as Glamour, Elle, GQ, Interview, and Harper’s Bazaar in the 1990s, which led to portrait assignments of prominent actors and musicians. Her fashion and portrait work was re-introduced in 2019 with the publication of her first book The Untamed Eye.

One of her prominent shoots was of Kate Moss who was unknown when she posed on the streets of New York in 1992 for Pfriender Stylander, who likened her to Anna Karina in the films of Jean-Luc Godard. Pfriender Stylander’s photographs for magazines and advertisements in the 1990s and 2000s celebrate a sensuality and grittiness, revealing character and psychological truth, inspired by the French New Wave cinema.

Pfriender Stylander's photographs have been included at Paris Photo, Photo Basel, Photo London, Photo Shanghai, AIPAD New York, Highlights Art Fair Munich, Barcelona’s Festival International de la Photo de Mode, and are housed in the Nicola Erni Collection and other museum and private collections worldwide. Her work has received numerous awards from American Photography, Communication Arts, International Photography Awards, and The Lucie Foundation.

She is a graduate from the School of Visual Arts, New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography and an Associate of Science in photography from Endicott College, Massachusetts.

In 2021, Pfriender Stylander had a solo exhibition in Paris, ‘New York City Lockdown’ with Galerie Sophie Scheidecker. She had a joint exhibition with Louise Dahl-Wolfe, ‘2 Women of Style’ at the Staley-Wise Gallery, New York in 2020.

She is represented by the Staley-Wise Gallery, New York, Izzy Gallery, Toronto, Ira Stehmann Fine Art, Munich and Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris.

Pfriender Stylander lives with her husband in downtown New York City.