Historic American Photographers

Historic American Photographers

Online information about American photography from sources other than Resource Library

(above: Alfred Steiglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918, Palladium print, 9 x 7 5/16 inches, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

150th Anniversary / Treaty of Fort Laramie is a 2018 exhibit at the Brinton Museum which says: "The Brinton Museum presents the 150th Anniversary / Treaty of Fort Laramie exhibition, featuring rare, historically important photographs by the celebrated nineteenth century American photographer Alexander Gardner." Also see press release. Accessed 10/18

Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention is a 2009 exhibit at the Jewish Museum which says: "Alias Man Ray presents a fresh look at the diversity of Man Ray's body of work, examining it in the context of his lifelong cover-up of his Russian-Jewish immigrant past and his suppression of his background." Accessed 2/19

Anne Brigman: A Visionary in Modern Photography is a 2018 exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art which says: "This major retrospective exhibition rediscovers and celebrates the work of Anne Brigman (1869-1950), who is best known for her iconic landscape photographs made in the early 1900s depicting herself and other female nudes outdoors in the Sierra Nevada." Accessed 10/18

The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston is a 2017 exhibit at the Mennello Museum of American Art which says: "William Eggleston, a renowned American photographer, is acclaimed for elevating color photography and transforming ordinary scenes into fine art. Through the eye of Eggleston, nothing is ordinary, despite his photographs' apparent depiction of ordinary things and ordinary people doing ordinary things." Also see press release Accessed 8/17

Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form is a 2017 exhibit at the Michener (James A.) Art Museum which says: "A Philadelphia native and Doylestown resident of the Worthington House between 1910 and 1926, Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) is recognized as one of the founding figures of American modernism for his pioneering work as both a painter and a photographer, with a particular penchant for industrial subjects." Accessed 4/17

Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925 is a 2017 exhibit at the Princeton University Art Museum which says: "This exhibition spotlights the work of Clarence White (1871-1925), a founding member of the Photo-Secession, a gifted photographer celebrated for his beautiful scenes of quiet domesticity and outdoor idylls, and an influential teacher and photographic mentor." Also see press release Accessed 12/17

Diane Arbus: Family Albums is a 2004 exhibit at the Grey Art Gallery which says: "In 1968, three years before her suicide, Arbus wrote that she was compiling her photographs into a "family album," likening it to a "Noah's ark" and perhaps imagining in it the people who might be remembered and saved in the aftermath of the tumultuous 1960s. "Family," in Arbus's sense, consisted of people held together by all sorts of bonds, some traditional and others alternative, and deserving of special attention." Also see "Diane Arbus Revelations" from Resource Library. Accessed 12/18

Edward Steichen: In Exaltation of Flowers is a 2021 exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art which says: "This exhibition features his most grand and ambitious effort in that medium: In Exaltation of Flowers. This large-scale mural, which measures ten feet high and nearly forty feet wide altogether, comes to the Chrysler on loan from Art Bridges. The mural's seven panels are paired with works from the Chrysler's rich photography and decorative arts holdings that illuminate Steichen's photographic career." Accessed 6/21

Edward Weston: Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist is a 2017 exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art which says: "Presenting Weston's earliest work from a recently discovered family album, Edward Weston: Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist compares the artist's naive first artistic efforts with his later masterworks to show the persistence and evolution of his singular vision to find essential form in the vernacular with an ever-increasing intensity." Accessed 3/17

Eliot Porter's Nature is a 2017 exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art - Maine which says: "Eliot Porter (United States, 1901-1990) is one of the best-known and most-beloved photographers in the American tradition.... Porter is credited for two major achievements: pushing color photography into the field of serious art photography and marrying his commitment to artistic expression with his commitment to the conservation of wildlife and wilderness areas." Also see 12/1917 article in Maine Today. Accessed 1/18

Exposed: Eadweard Muybridge and the Study of Motion was a 2014 exhibit at the Heckscher Museum of Art whcih said:" Credited as the "father of the motion picture," Eadweard Muybridge pioneered the study of human and animal motion in time-lapse photography that documented the dynamics of ordinary, everyday movement. Under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, Muybridge produced over 100,000 photographs, publishing 20,000 of them in his eleven-volume Animal Locomotion (1887). His work caused a sensation in artistic and scientific circles, helping spur the development of modern art and contributing to the science of biomechanics. This exhibition features iconic Muybridge studies of horses and zoo animals, men engaged in various athletic pursuits, and women in domestic activities." Includes exhibit brochure, resource guide and introduction. Accessed January, 2015

Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty is a 2009 exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center which says: "Featuring more than 125 seminal works that span the six decades of Henle's career, the exhibition documents his enduring quest to find beauty in all forms of artistic genres and throughout the world." Accessed 12/18

Garry Winogrand: Color is a 2019 exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art which says: "The exhibition presents an enveloping installation of large-scale projections comprising more than 400 rarely or never-before seen color photographs that capture the social and physical landscape of New York City and the United States." Also see BMA's press release Accessed 9/19

Imogen Cunningham: In Focus was a 2016-17 exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston which says: "Showcasing the range of photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), this exhibition displays about 35 works from the Lane Collection and the MFA's own holdings. A major figure in 20th-century American photography, Cunningham was a co-founder of Group f/64, joining forces with Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and other San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared an aesthetic of sharply-focused images and natural subjects." See MFA press release and William Myers 9/21/16 WSJ review of exhibit. Accessed 10/16

Ilse Bing: Queen of the Leica is a 2020 exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art which says: "In 1929 Ilse Bing (1899-1998) acquired a Leica, a new small, lightweight camera that took 36 shots per roll of film. Its technical characteristics, revolutionary at the time, encouraged spontaneity, experimentation, and boldness. The first professional to wholeheartedly adopt this 35mm single-lens camera, Bing was soon dubbed by a critic as the "Queen of the Leica" for the inventiveness and originality she brought to this innovative technology." Accessed 12/20

Invocation of Beauty: The Life and Photography of Soichi Sunami is a 2018 exhibit at the Cascadia Art Museum which says: "Using his initial contacts from Seattle, Sunami went on to produce one of the most important bodies of work in the field of dance photography." Also see entry in Wikipedia. Accessed 11/18

Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty is a 2015 exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum which says: "Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty, the first retrospective of Penn's work in nearly twenty years, celebrates his legacy as a modern master and reveals the full expressive range of his work." Accessed 8/18

Lee Friedlander: The Cray Photographs, an exhibit held March 27 - June 16, 2013 at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. Includes press release. Accessed August, 2015.

Lee Friedlander's Factory Valleys is a 2009 exhibit at the Akron Art Museum which says: "In 1979 Akron's director, John Coplans, invited Friedlander to photograph America's industrial belt. Although once a prime source of the nation's wealth, the industrial Heartland was spiraling into an economic recession in the late 1970s. The artist decided to focus on Ohio and Pennsylvania." Accessed 3/17

Making Science Visible: The Photography of Berenice Abbott, an exhibit held August 31 - December 16 2012 at The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. Texts include exhibit labels. Accessed August, 2015.

Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens was a 2009-10 exhibit at the Phillips Collection which said: "The exhibition reveals photography's complex engagement with African art by exploring African art in the context of American modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, surrealism, and the worlds of high fashion and popular culture, at the same time as it investigates issues of race, gender, and colonialism during the modernist era.Includes online videos. Accessed August, 2015.

Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist is a 2015 exhibit at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art which says: "This exhibition provides the unusual opportunity to view the entire span of Bourke-White's remarkable career, from the campus views she sold both to classmates and to Cornell publications, through her work in architectural and industrial photography, to the images she made as a photojournalist in the United States and overseas." Accessed 8/18

MetPublications, an online resource launched In October 2012 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art offers in-depth access to the Museum's print and online publications, covering art, art history, archaeology, conservation, and collecting, titles relating to American representational art available for free viewing via.pdf download or online reading include: Intimate Landscapes: Photographs; Porter, Eliot (1979). Accessed August, 2015.

Myra Albert Wiggins: A Photographer's Life is a 2015 exhibit at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University which says: "Myra Albert Wiggins (1869-1956) was a Salem photographer and early member of Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secessionist Group. At the turn of the last century, Wiggins was considered one of the foremost women photographers in America." Accessed 8/18

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is a 2018 exhibit at the Gilcrease Museum which says: "This landmark exhibition sheds new light on Norman Rockwell's art and artistry. Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is the first exhibition to explore in depth Rockwell's richly detailed study photographs, created by the artist as references for his iconic paintings." Also see 9/9/10 review in New York Times. Accessed 3/18

Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance an exhibit held March 31 - August 9, 2009 at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Includes audio clips. Accessed August, 2015.

ReVIEWing the 35mm slide is a 2018 exhibit at the Lafayette College Galleries which says: "With slides incorporated into their medium, the artists featured in ReVIEWing the 35mm Slide revive these once-powerful recorders of art, memory, and time, transforming the worlds contained within their 2-inch x 2-inch cardboard or plastic frames." Accessed 2/18

Seen & Unseen: Photographs by Imogen Cunningham is a 2018 exhibit at the Columbia Museum of Art which says: "Throughout her career, Cunningham valued the importance of light, form, and pattern in her compositions. Her pioneering use of platinum printing and often of double exposures are still of interest to contemporary photographers." Accessed 3/18

Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene is a 2020 exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago which says: "Although he exhibited his photographs while he was alive, Greene's work escaped serious notice until the 1970s and 1980s, when an expanding art market for photographs encouraged renewed interest in 19th-century photographers. To 20th-century viewers trained in modernist art, it was impossible to ignore the striking spareness of Greene's landscapes, his adept manipulation of negative and positive space, and the near abstraction of his close-up views." Accessed 11/20

Stephen Shore: Uncommon Places is a 2014 exhibit at the California Museum of Photography which says: "These photographs show Shore's exploration of America and how a sense of his journey was conveyed through serial imagery. Furthermore, this project evidences Shore's investigation of photography as a medium -- a journey by which he attempted to understand how formal elements could be used to construct a visually coherent image and the most common scenes could become uncommon visual experiences." Accessed 10/18

Towards Abstraction, 1940-1985: Brett Weston Photographs from the Bruce Museum Collection is a 2016-17 exhibit at the Bruce Museum which says: "Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, Brett Weston (1911-1993) was obsessed with abstracted micro-images of reality as well as of cities and landscapes captured by a long telephoto lens that diminished the depth of field, thus flattening the image. Weston used a medium or large-format camera and contact printed on high-gloss paper directly from the negative, selecting his subjects carefully rather than manipulating in the dark room. The subjects, always from nature, became increasingly less recognizable as time progressed." See news release and image sheet. Accessed 2/17

Weegee by Weegee - Photographs from the Jean Pigozzi Collection was a 2015 exhibit at the Baker Museum which says: "The photographer's presence is suggested throughout the gallery by the use of autobiographical comments and notes on the works featured, hence the exhibition's title. A broad selection of period tabloids and magazines including Weegee's photographs highlights his production's practical purpose. Furthermore, a graphic timeline depicting the evolution of the cameras he used, his incursions into cinema, the books he published and curious facts about his life contributes to the contextualization of Weegee's narrative." Accessed 1/17

Where We Find Ourselves: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, 1897 - 1922 is a 2019 exhibit at the Nasher Museum of Art which says: "Mangum's photographs are not only images; they are objects that have survived a history of their own and exist within a larger political and cultural history. " Accessed 1/20

William Henry Jackson: Pioneer Photographer of the American West is a 2016 exhibit at the Brinton Museum which says: "Perhaps the most famous, and highly-regarded, of the 19th century photographers to photograph the great American West, artist and Civil War veteran William Henry Jackson started his impressive photographic career in Omaha, Nebraska in 1867." Accessed 11/18

William Wegman: Cubism and Other-isms, an exhibit held August 22, 2015 - January 31, 2016 at the Asheville Art Museum. The museum says: "Over the years, props in Wegman's photographs have taken many forms, but none so consistently as the cube. ... The cube is also one of the most available on-set items in the studios of commercial photographers, used for displaying products in tableaux or isolation to highlight their form or shape. Accessed January 2016.

Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting is a 2018 exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art which says: "Homer acquired his first cameras during a two-year sojourn abroad in England, a trip he took in his mid-forties seeking a new direction in his art." Accessed 8/18

(above: Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Admiral David Dixon Porter on the Deck of His Flagship the "Malver" After the Victory at Ft. Fisher, North Carolina, 1865, albumen silver, 9.7 x 7.6 inches, Getty Center. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)

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