Exhibition: ‘Hujar:Contact’ at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, New York

Exhibition dates: 22nd May – 25th October, 2026

Curator: Joel Smith, Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head of Photography

1955-63: Beginnings

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Dead Fish, Fire Island
1960-1962
Gelatin silver print, mounted on board
Image/Sheet: 10 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches (37.3 x 28.5cm)
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Peter Hujar Collection
Gift of Stephen Koch

Hujar found an unlikely elegance in this unpromising subject, discovered as he began spending more time in the early 1960s on Fire Island, off the southern coast of Long Island. The excavation of beauty out of decay points to Hujar’s early admiration for the wide-ranging work that Irving Penn had been publishing in Vogue magazine since the 1940s.

Large print label text

An empathetic eye

As many of you may know from reading Art Blart over the years, I deeply admire the work of the American photographer Peter Hujar (1934-1987).

With this exhibition we get to dive into the contact sheets of the artist which give insight into “the nature of his attention and the unique personality of each of his subjects.” They allow us, the viewer, to better understand the flow of Hujar’s creative process and the focus of his vision – the consistency of that vision, how he approaches his subject matter, his understanding of light, framing, presence – and the “rhythm of Hujar’s looking.”

I feel (a critical word) that Hujar approaches his subject with an open and informed mind. Using the experience of his many years as a commercial photographer he has the innate ability in his personal work to put the camera in the right place at the right time, to find time and time again what he is looking for in direct, honest, beautiful photographs of places, animals and people.

I look at the contact sheet for Caven Point, New Jersey, with David Wojnarowicz (1984, below) and observe that not one shot is wasted, that Hujar knows exactly his directorial language. He is an auteur with a recognisable personal style, recurring themes, and deep artistic control.

While less confrontational, more empathetic, more cinematic in the feeling of spatiality in the image, Hujar’s approach to subject matter is similar to a photographer of a slightly earlier generation, Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) who also ran a commercial photography studio, working as an art director, conceptualiser, and stylist before becoming disillusioned with the artificial demands of the commercial fashion world, then moving into mainly portrait photography.

Both artist’s know how to get the most from their subject matter letting the sitter – cow, horse, human, giant – speak of their place in the world, photographs revealing their inner spirit and energy. As Loring Knoblaunch observes, “As seen in these contact sheets, Hujar seemed to work best in a loose flow of time, where collaboration and connection were the variables that ultimately mattered to the capturing of a durable visual essence.” This is the embodiment of Hujar’s art.

Various texts insist on a sense of desolation (a state of extreme emptiness, destruction, or deep, hopeless sadness), fatalism and melancholy present in Hujar’s photographs:

“Woven throughout Peter Hujar’s photographs is a profound sense of fatality about the world. This bleakness in his art reflects both the abuse he faced as a child and his concern about the AIDS crisis which, at the time, only showed signs of worsening.” (Text from the Morgan Library & Museum Facebook page)

“Postindustrial Queens, windblown Caven Point, and burned-out, riot-torn Newark were places that appealed to Wojnarowicz’s and Hujar’s attunement to disaster. Their fatalism reflected the neglect and abuse each of them had known in childhood, as well as their consciousness of an AIDS crisis that only showed signs of deepening.” (Large print label text)

and in Loring Knoblauch‘s excellent review of the exhibition:

“Hujar’s work has always been filled with themes of darkness, melancholy, and alienation, and the visual evidence in his contact sheets reinforces those moods, but with a quiet undercurrent of attentive resolve.”

I don’t feel this at all.

As a gay man myself, having survived years of abuse growing up and having lived through the initial AIDS crisis in the 1980s and survived (and lost a lot of friends), I don’t find Hujar’s photography at all dark or bleak in regards to family, growing up or the AIDS crisis. In fact quite the opposite, I find his photographs uplifting, inspiring in their humanity and empathy.

Fatalism … what the hell is that anyway? “the philosophical and psychological doctrine that all events are fixed in advance by fate or an overarching power, making human free will, choices, and actions powerless to change the outcome”

No. Hujar’s very photographs speak against this concept (that human free will, choices and actions are powerless) through what he chooses to photograph, through the snap of the shutter (this instant not another) and through his photographs of protests against the lack of HIV/AIDS funding. Human actions DO matter in the outcome. And as to alienation (a state or feeling of being cut off, isolated, or estranged from people, society, or oneself), Hujar’s very engagement with the world – through his city, community and friends, through so many intersections with reality, so many points of view, forming such a nexus of connections – obviates such a reading of his work.

Through these contact sheets, through Hujar’s empathetic vision, we become, as Marina Vitaglione puts it, “immersed in the rhythm of Hujar’s looking.”

That looking is always lyrical, joyous and very human.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. What we need now is an exhibition on the beginnings of Hujar’s artistic career!

Many thankx to the Morgan Library and Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting.

Many thankx also to Loring Knoblauch and the Collector Daily website for allowing me to publish the installation photographs in the posting. Permission is very much appreciated. Her review of the exhibition is excellent and offers the reader numerous insights into Hujar’s artistic practice.

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“The changing of a pose, the tilt of a head, a move a little closer, a different angle of approach, a laugh, a moment of relaxation, a moment of anxiousness or wariness, another shift, and then bang! There it is. And of course, Hujar couldn’t know whether he’d gotten or not, so he often kept going. But for students of studio portraiture, this is the master class on offer in this exhibit – watch what he was looking for, how he was moving and adapting (quietly and unobtrusively hunting even), and where he ultimately found the pivot point where something boring became something unexpectedly vulnerable or compelling.”

“Hujar’s work has always been filled with themes of darkness, melancholy, and alienation, and the visual evidence in his contact sheets reinforces those moods, but with a quiet undercurrent of attentive resolve. He actually found what he was looking for more often than not, which is part of the reason his place in photographic history is secure.”

Loring Knoblauch. “Hujar:Contact @Morgan Library,” on the Collector Daily website, August 21, 2026 [Online] Cited 03/10/2026

installation view of the exhibition 'Hujar:Contact' at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, New York, May - October, 2026

installation views of the exhibition Hujar:Contact at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, New York, May – October, 2026. Many thankx to Loring Knoblauch and the Collector Daily website for allowing me to publish the installation photographs in the posting.

1966-72: Onto the Page

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Capuchin Catacombs, Palermo, with Paul Thek
1963
Job 256, 11 sheets
Contact sheet fragments
Dimensions vary – 3 fragments: 7 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches each; 1 fragment: 5 x 3 1/2 inches
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Peter Hujar Collection, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Near the end of their time in Italy, Hujar and Paul Thek visited the catacombs maintained by monks of the Capuchin order in Sicily. Thek was fascinated by the site, which he described as a room “decorated with corpses”; soon after returning to New York, he would be making sculpture exploring the decay of the flesh and the body’s status as an object. The photographs Hujar made in the catacombs in, as he said, “about 20 minutes,” proved to be of outsize importance in his later work, forming the second half of his 1976 monograph, Portraits in Life and Death.

Large print label text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Joseph Raffael among other Stable Gallery artists and staff
c. 1967
Job 327, 11 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Peter Hujar Collection, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

The group portrait is one of the most purely functional genres of photography: Creativity is stymied by the logistical challenge of attaining an exposure in which nobody blinks. Photographer Peter Hujar was attracted to the challenge. As seen in the markings on his contact sheets, he treated the group setting as a means of eliciting responses from selected individuals. In each frame of the eleven sheets in which Hujar portrayed those connected with the Stable Gallery, he drew squares to single out his former boyfriend, Joseph Raphael.

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Hujar:Contact offers an unprecedented look into the life, times, and creative evolution of a master photographer. The exhibition features more than 110 contact sheets and 20 enlargements from the Morgan’s Peter Hujar Collection, which includes over 5,700 contact sheets from throughout the artist’s career.

Peter Hujar (1934-1987) began filing contact sheets and assigning them job numbers at age twenty-one. His records make it possible to track his development – from two decades as a studio assistant (1955-1967), when he pushed himself to try work of every kind, into the late 1960s and his work as a freelancer in fashion, music, and advertising, through his mature period (1974-1987) as a fiercely independent and influential artist in the East Village.

Many of the contact sheets bear editing marks that indicate ideas about cropping and printing and contextualize the exposures Hujar ultimately decided to enlarge. The intense, interactive quality of his portrait work comes to life in contact sheets that read as intimate pictorial narratives, revealing the nature of his attention and the unique personality of each of his subjects. As Hujar matures and struggles, and as the character of his social world changes from the 1950s through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, his contact sheets tell the nuanced story of a lifetime, a community, and an era.

Text from the Morgan Library & Museum website

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Road trip to Pennsylvania and West Virginia with Ann Wilson and Jim Fouratt' 1969, job 463

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Road Trip to Pennsylvania and West Virginia
1969
Job 463, 23 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Peter Hujar Collection, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

In October 1969 Hujar undertook a car trip to Pennsylvania and West Virginia with Jim Fouratt and the artist Ann Wilson. Wilson recalled gratefully that the journey was Hujar’s way of keeping her occupied after the sudden death of her husband, critic Gene Swenson, in a car crash. For Hujar, the purpose of the trip was making portraits of animals that he sought out along the way, including horses, sheep, and cattle. It would be another seven years before he pursued animal portraiture in depth.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Jackie Curtis for New Times magazine' c. 1970 job 474

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Jackie Curtis at 10 East 23rd Street; Jackie Curtis for New Times magazine
c. 1970
Job 474 B, 7 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Peter Hujar Collection, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

The bond Hujar formed with Warhol “superstar” Jackie Curtis reflected, in part, their mutual rejection of familiar sexual identities. Curtis told The New York Times, “I’m not a boy, not a girl, not a faggot, not a drag queen, not a transsexual – just me, Jackie.”

This contact sheet comes from the session for a 1970 New Times magazine feature on New Yorkers who defined their historical moment. The print is from a separate session, which yielded a spread of full-page portraits of Curtis in issue six of Newspaper.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
The Cockettes at 10 East 23rd Street
1971
Job 519
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

In November of 1971, the San Francisco troupe, the Cockettes, came to New York to perform at the Anderson Theatre. Peter Hujar photographed them in his Madison Square studio and on the street outside the theatre – solo, in pairs and trios, and in large groups. In all he shot over fifty rolls of film. Pictured here [below] is Fayette, one of the co-founders of the avant-garde experimental theatre troupe.

Many of these photographs ran in the final issue of Newspaper, which was devoted entirely to the group. Though the Cockettes’ shaggy performance style was roundly scorned by New York audiences, photographing them crystallised a theme – the stance of “genderfuck,” a madcap travesty of gender identities – that Hujar would explore in his work for the rest of his life.

Large print label text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Fayette
1971
Gelatin silver print
Image: 14 11/16 x 14 11/16 inches (37.3 x 37.3cm)
Sheet: 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 inches (50.5 x 40.4cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York
Gift of Stephen Koch
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive /

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Rick Derringer and Patti Smith' 1971, Job 517

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Patti Smith and Rick Derringer
1971
Job 517, 11 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

At the turn of the 1970s, much of Peter Hujar’s paying work revolved around rock music publicity, including gigs ranging from concert coverage to record cover art to music magazine features. As documented in his contact sheets, Hujar frequently merged and swapped traditional gender codes in the presentation of the performers he photographed, such as Rick Derringer and Patti Smith pictured here.

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This spring, the Morgan Library & Museum presents Hujar:Contact, an exhibition exploring the life, times, and creative evolution of photographer Peter Hujar (1934 – 1987). On view from May 22 through October 25, 2026, the exhibition features more than 110 contact sheets and 20 enlargements from the Morgan’s collection of Peter Hujar’s works.

Highlights include portraits of artists and performers such as Marsha P. Johnson, Jackie Curtis, Patti Smith, Candy Darling, John Zorn, and Ethyl Eichelberger, as well as Hujar’s creative collaborators and lovers, including Paul Thek, Joseph Raffael, and David Wojnarowicz. Hujar’s distinctive portraiture, alongside rare prints of his street photography, interiors, and landscapes, reveals the unflinching eye he cast upon a vast range of subjects.

In 2013, the Morgan acquired the 5,783 black-and-white contact sheets Hujar possessed at the time of his death, along with two notebooks, or “job books,” in which he recorded his photographic assignments and personal projects from 1954 until 1985. Together, these materials provide a detailed record of an artist who left no written reflection on his work, yet carefully preserved the traces of his decades-long photographic life. Hujar:Contact foregrounds the material processes that structured photographic practice in the era of film and chemical printing. Visitors to the exhibition will be transported to Hujar’s darkroom, invited to study these small images with the same attentiveness and care that Hujar himself brought to them.

“Following our 2018 exhibition Peter Hujar: Speed of Life, which explored the full length and breadth of Hujar’s artistic career for the first time, Hujar:Contact turns to his creative process,” said Colin B. Bailey, Katharine J. Rayner Director of the Morgan Library & Museum. “This exhibition advances the Morgan’s commitment to collecting and interpreting contemporary photography and to broadening appreciation for a medium that is both immediate and reflective.”

The exhibition elevates the contact sheet, traditionally a working tool, into an art object worthy of close visual reading in its own right. Each sheet reproduces an entire roll of film, allowing viewers to follow Hujar’s eye through a series of exposures. Many of the contact sheets include Hujar’s own handwritten notes, marks, and annotations, which indicate his changing approach to cropping and printing and elucidate the editorial decisions behind each final image.

“Contact sheets reveal an intimate history of Hujar’s habits, inspirations, and happy accidents – the intricacies hidden behind a final print,” said Joel Smith, curator of the exhibition and Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head of Photography at the Morgan. “Hujar:Contact illuminates the physical process that was central to his artistic practice.”

Reproduced at large scale on the walls are dozens of pages from Hujar’s job books, which provide the closest thing to a chronological account of his career. The earliest surviving page dates to 1954, when Hujar was just beginning to photograph friends and loved ones in New York. Over the following decades, the notebooks grew into a numbered record of hundreds of shoots, following the artist from his job as a studio assistant in the 1950s to his work in fashion and music journalism in the late 1960s, and ultimately to the independent portrait practice that defined his mature work in downtown New York.

By the mid-1970s, Hujar had become a central figure in the cultural life of New York’s East Village. Working primarily with a medium-format camera that allowed him to maintain eye contact with his sitters, Hujar cultivated an atmosphere in which photographer and subject shaped the image together. Visitors will gain a vivid sense of this collaborative process through the presentation of contact sheets alongside never-before-exhibited prints, unveiling how individual portraits emerged from a give and-take process grounded in patience and mutual curiosity.

Hujar:Contact is organised by Joel Smith, Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head of Photography.

The exhibition is accompanied by an eponymous catalogue that offers an authoritative and visually rich account of Peter Hujar’s creative process, featuring nearly five hundred reproductions of his contact sheets. Drawing from the Morgan Library & Museum’s extensive archive of more than five thousand original contact sheets and two job books created between 1954 and 1985, the publication provides an unprecedented look into the artist’s working methods.

Critical texts by Joel Smith establish a chronology of Hujar’s contact sheets, presenting a portrait of an artist developing, experimenting with, and refining his practice against the tumultuous cultural politics and sea changes of gay life conveyed by the words “Stonewall” and “AIDS.”

Throughout his career, Hujar recorded more than a thousand photo shoots in his job books. A complete transcription and annotation of these materials by Olivia McCall lends the volume unique scholarly value.

Published by the Morgan Library & Museum in association with MACK, the catalogue is available for pre-order in the Morgan Shop for $70.

Press release from the Morgan Library & Museum

1973-76: Life and Death

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Seven-part movement executed by Robyn Brentano, S. K. Dunn, and Charles Dennis of Robert Wilson’s Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds' 1973, job 539

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds: 7-part movement executed by Robyn Brentano, S.K. Dunn, and Charles Dennis
1973
Job 539, 9 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

In 1971 Hujar was introduced to theatre impresario Robert Wilson’s company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, through the involvement of Ann Wilson, Robyn Brentano, and other friends. His first photographs of the troupe record their ritual-like rehearsal of the “seven-part movement” that figured in the productions The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud (1969) and The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin (1973). Hujar’s constant profile-view perspective lends the session’s contact sheets the hypnotic regularity of a score by Wilson’s frequent collaborator, Philip Glass.

Large print label text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Christopher Street Liberation Day Fair with John Waters and Jackie Curtis
1973
Job 577
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

As seen in the central frame of this contact sheet, Peter Hujar often turned the camera over to others, inviting them to take a picture of him. Because he rarely made prints of these frames, it is possible that the gesture was intended as much to ease others’ nervousness around the camera as to produce a portrait of himself.

The 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Fair – the forerunner of the Pride March, from which this contact sheet originates – was notable for Sylvia Rivera’s historic speech in Washington Square Park, in which she advocated for members of the gay community who were homeless or incarcerated.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Candy Darling in room 1423, Cabrini Health Care Center
1973
Job 587, 6 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Peter Hujar’s famous photograph, “Candy Darling on Her Deathbed,” [below] printed from the top-right frame marked with a dot, appeared in the New York Daily News shortly after her death in March 1974, and in several other publications soon thereafter. Perhaps due to this wide public circulation, Hujar excluded the image from his 1976 book “Portraits in Life and Death.”

Before checking into Cabrini Health Care Center for testing in September 1973, Warhol superstar Candy Darling asked Hujar to make a portrait “for my fans.” The contact sheet reveals the most iconic still of Candy lying languidly in bed, surrounded by movement, laughter, and theatricality.

Hujar later described their session as a kind of performance, recalling that Candy was “playing every death scene from every movie.” He mirrored this cinematic sensibility in his composition and printing process, shaping the final image so that the dreary details of the room—fluorescent light, hospital bedding, a single rose – are transformed into an icon reminiscent of Hollywood’s golden-age portraiture.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Candy Darling on Her Deathbed
1973
Gelatin silver print
Collection of Richard L. and Ronay Menschel
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Man and Woman at Windows, Briarcliff Manor
1974
From Jill Johnston, Winnie Johnston, Rick Brintzenhofe, and Robyn Brentano at Briarcliff Manor, New York, 1974 (Job 607, 5 sheets)
Gelatin silver print
Image: 13 7/8 x 13 11/16 inches (35.3 x 34.8cm)
Sheet: 16 13/16 x 13 7/8 inches (42.7 x 35.3cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York
Gift of Stephen Koch
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Man and Woman portrays Hujar’s friends Robyn Brentano and Rick Brintzenhofe in a room at the home of friends in Briarcliff Manor, New York. As Brentano recalls, she and Brintzenhofe were on the verge of a breakup at the time. Between them hangs a poster of the famous Unicorn in Captivity tapestry (1495-1505) at the Cloisters. Hujar’s symbolically staged scene is anomalous in his work of the time, bearing greater resemblance to his magazine images of a few years earlier.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Self-portraits at 189 Second Avenue' 1974, job 620

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Self-portraits on heel
1974
Job 620, 3 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Hujar’s move into a large, low-rent space at 189 Second Avenue in the 1970s coincided with his decision to give up paid work altogether as he began to pursue more meaningful personal projects. As if trumpeting his arrival at the loft, in this contact sheet Hujar frolics and salutes the camera.

Hujar would live and work in the loft for the remainder of his life until New Year’s Day in 1987, when he received a tragic AIDS diagnosis. He quit abruptly thereafter, and even declined to catch up on his job-book entries for the preceding year’s work. He passed away that November due to related complications.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Vince Aletti and Fran Lebowitz, Morristown, New Jersey
1974
Job 622
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

On a few occasions Fran Lebowitz invited Hujar and Vince Aletti to visit her family home in Morristown, New Jersey, and the three of them stayed overnight. Once, Hujar photographed each of his friends in the beds where they had spent the previous night, Aletti in Fran’s bedroom and Fran in her sister’s. The diaristic nature of the exposures looks ahead to the work of Nan Goldin, which Hujar would point to in the 1980s as a compelling next stage in the medium’s evolution.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Diana Vreeland
1975
Job 655, 7 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

The first page of Peter Hujar’s second job book begins with the heading “FOR BOOK” and the names of several dozen people he photographed for what would become “Portraits in Life and Death” (1976). Hujar’s friend Robyn Brentano, fashion editor Diana Vreeland, and artist/writer Joe Brainard did not make the cut. Of the finished book, Hujar told an interviewer, “In a sense, I’m still a fashion photographer. These people are chic, but in a dark kind of way. Most of them are unknown or maybe known to just a few, but they have all been creative adventurers and possess a certain spirit.” Perhaps he ultimately decided that Vreeland, like Andy Warhol and model Lauren Hutton, was too “known” to fit in. Hujar also appears to have striven to represent variety in his subjects’ age, personal style, gender, vocation, and disposition.

Large label print text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Joe Brainard
1975
Job 664, 9 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Joe Brainard was an American artist and writer associated with the New York School. His prodigious and innovative body of work included assemblages, collages, drawing, and painting, as well as designs for book and album covers, theatrical sets and costumes.

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Marsha P. Johnson on Christopher Street Pier, Easter' 1976, job 719

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Marsha P. Johnson on Christopher Street Pier, Easter Sunday
1976
Job 719, 12 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Peter Hujar’s engagement with New York’s downtown arts and queer communities is reflected in his photographs of fellow artists, writers, and activists, including Marsha P. Johnson, pictured here. Johnson participated in the Stonewall uprising and became one of the figures most closely associated with the movement that emerged from it.

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1977-80: Recovery

The term “Recovery” aligns with a period of personal realignment and stabilizing focus following years of emotional, financial, and professional instability. During these years, Hujar established a more structured rhythm with his medium, producing intimate, deeply felt portraits of downtown cultural luminaries, friends, and chosen family.

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Electric Cow
1978
From Joseph Hyrkin and animals, Westtown, New York, 1978 (Job 820, 24 sheets)
Gelatin silver print
Image: 14 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches (37.4 x 37.4cm)
Sheet: 19 13/16 x 15 7/8 inches (50.3 x 40.4cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York
Gift of Roy Eddey and Joel Hershey in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

In the early 1970s a former colleague of Hujar’s at Harold Krieger’s studio, Roy Hyrkin, moved with his family to a remote farming area in Orange County, New York. Hujar, who could not drive, visited them when he could get a ride. Roy Hyrkin recalls Hujar’s rare mood of “delight” upon returning from morning walks with ten-year-old Joseph to photograph animals, including the cows Joseph milked at the dairy next door. Farm animals had been a constant presence during Hujar’s childhood at his grandparents’ house in Trenton, New Jersey. Friends who saw him photograph animals recall that he spoke to them in the same manner he used during any portrait session with a person.

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Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Pascal (Feet), Paris
1980
Gelatin silver print
Image: 14 9/16 x 14 3/4 inches (37 x 37.4cm)
Sheet: 19 7/8 x 15 15/16 inches (50.5 x 40.5cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York
Gift of Stephen Koch
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Among the ways that Hujar expanded his approach to portraiture was by zeroing in on parts of the body besides the face. In Paris for the opening of a gallery show of his work in 1980, he photographed the feet of the young fashion designer Pascal Humbert (misidentified in Hujar’s job book as “Imbert”), as well as close-ups of his face and scarred torso.

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1981-87: Shadowlands

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'David Wojnarowicz II' 1981 job 936

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
David Wojnarowicz #2
1981
Job 936, 8 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

The defining relationship of Peter Hujar’s final years was with David Wojnarowicz. When they met, at the Bar on Second Avenue in January of 1981, Wojnarowicz was writing poetry and playing music, and Hujar encouraged him to focus on his visual art.

In his job book Hujar distinguishes between two early sessions, “David W #1” and “David W #2.” On the latter date (seen here), he used bounced light that emphasises the volume of Wojnarowicz’s features and hints at an inner life that was as important to the portraitist as his outward appearance.

Large print label text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Kiki Smith at 189
1984
Job 1052
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

The eyes dominate in Hujar’s portraits of artist Kiki Smith, in which he employs a softened version of the chiaroscuro lighting technique he evolved a few years earlier. A variant on this photograph is one of several portraits by Hujar, David Armstrong, and Nan Goldin that Cookie Mueller used for “before and after” illustrations in her book How to Get Rid of Pimples (1984), with hand-drawn dots added by the author to the “before” image of each sitter’s face.

Large print label text

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Kiki Smith (2)
1984
Gelatin silver print
Image: 14 5/8 x 14 3/4 inches (37.2 x 37.5cm)
Sheet: 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 inches (50.5 x 40.3cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York
Gift of Stephen Koch
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Caven Point, New Jersey, with David Wojnarowicz
1984
Job 1063, 12 sheets
Contact sheet
11 x 8 1/2 inches
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection, New York, purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund, 2013
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Postindustrial Queens, windblown Caven Point, and burned-out, riot-torn Newark were places that appealed to Wojnarowicz’s and Hujar’s attunement to disaster. Their fatalism reflected the neglect and abuse each of them had known in childhood, as well as their consciousness of an AIDS crisis that only showed signs of deepening. Assigned in 1983 to make a cover photograph for the Village Voice about gay dread and mourning, Hujar had enlisted Wojnarowicz as his model. Their shared experience of abandoned locales was formative both for their work and for their deepening friendship.

Large print label text

Woven throughout Peter Hujar’s photographs is a profound sense of fatality about the world. This bleakness in his art reflects both the abuse he faced as a child and his concern about the AIDS crisis which, at the time, only showed signs of worsening.

It was with this in mind that he set out with David Wojnarowicz, a creative he had taken on as mentee, to shoot a cover photograph for a Village Voice issue on gay dread and mourning. The pair visited several locations in post-industrial Queens, windblown Caven Point, and riot-torn Newark that appealed to their eye for disaster. Trips to abandoned locations like these proved to be formative for both their work and friendship alike.

Text from the Morgan Library & Museum Facebook page

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Road and Power Line, New Jersey
1984
From Caven Point, New Jersey, with David Wojnarowicz, 1984 (Job 1063, 12 sheets)
Gelatin silver print
Image: 14 9/16 x 14 3/4 inches (37 x 37.4cm)
Sheet: 19 13/16 x 15 7/8 inches (50.4 x 40.3cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Gift of Stephen Koch
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
John Zorn
1986
From John Zorn, 1986 (No job number, 9 sheets)
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 x 8 1/16 inches (22.8 x 22.7cm)
Sheet: 13 7/8 x 10 7/8 inches (35.3 x 27.6cm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Gift of Stephen Koch
Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Ortuzar, New York
© The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

By the time of his final exhibition in early 1986, Peter Hujar’s health was in decline. He continued working for the rest of the year, but upon receiving a diagnosis of AIDS in early 1987, he quit abruptly, even declining to catch up on his job-book entries for the previous year’s work. Therefore, his final finished images, including these sensitive portraits of composer John Zorn, are dateable to 1986 by the very absence of detailed information about them.

Large print label text

Hujar:Contact book cover

“Less a monograph than an exposed nervous system: strips of images accumulating into something restless and alive, all hesitation, process, and thought still developing in the tray. … Across the pages of Hujar:Contact, [the images] become immersive. … the experience is less that of viewing discrete photographs than inhabiting the rhythm of Hujar’s looking.”

Marina Vitaglione, Blind Magazine

Hujar:Contact explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s extensive archive of original contact sheets and job books made by the beloved photographer Peter Hujar between 1954 and 1987, which come together to form an enthralling visual document of the artist’s creative process. Hujar’s empathetic eye focused in on varying subjects – crowds of protest, damaged relics, farm animals – but above all he was preoccupied with making portraits of the overlapping circles of artists, writers, and underground luminaries he moved within in New York. Accompanying critical texts by Joel Smith establish a chronology of Hujar’s contact sheets, presenting an artist developing, experimenting with, and refining his practice against the tumultuous cultural politics and sea changes of gay life conveyed by the words ‘Stonewall’ and ‘AIDS’.

Throughout his career Hujar recorded more than a thousand photo shoots in his job books. These documents, which are transcribed and annotated in Hujar:Contact, illuminate the contact sheets, rich in never-before-seen images as well as the earliest iterations of Hujar’s most iconic works, including portraits of Susan Sontag, David Wojnarowicz, Candy Darling, Gary Indiana, Fran Lebowitz, and Paul Thek. This volume provides captivating insight into a master at work, forming an immersive chronicle of Hujar’s poignant efforts to connect, through photography, with the creative communities that defined his life, outlook, and art.

Text from the Amazon website

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY
Phone: (212) 685-0008

Opening hours:
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Friday: 10.30am – 7pm
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Exhibition: ‘Sally Mann. Macula et materia’ at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain

Exhibition dates: 17th July – 18th October, 2026

Curator: Anne Morin, diChroma photography

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Untitled (Ben Salem)
1993
From the series Virginia
Gelatin silver print
76.2 x 101.6cm
© Sally Mann

Knowing your place

If someone asked me who the two living photographers that I would most like to meet were, one of them would be Wolfgang Tillmans … and the other would be Sally Mann. Both artists produce work that has a social conscience, social conscience being a person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour. In both artists’ cases this social integrity acts as a guide in the production of their art.

In this latest exhibition on Mann’s complex body of work built on years of personal reflection, reading and research the title is instructive, Macula et materia, which can be variously translated from the Latin as stain and matter; stain and substance; stain and spirit or, more poetically, “the blemish and the essence”. Personally I like the last translation which is particularly pertinent for Mann’s work.

In an erudite but anonymous piece of writing “Sally Mann. Macula et Materia,” on the diChroma photography website (see below) the author grasps the essences embedded within Mann’s photography, the stain and spirit of her work, that is, blemishes, clefts, black orbs and fragments, traces of history rendered present in our collective consciousness: knowledge of history, place, war, segregation, slavery, racism:

“Here, in Virginia and the Deep South, history and human memory lie still smouldering in the depths of the earth. Sally Mann’s images are crystalline impressions, imprints bearing these deep truths that she brings up to our eyes. They will live on through the centuries, and enrich our collective memory.”

What Mann does so well is that she listens to the passing of time and then inscribes an ode to what remains, the tainted blemish of the past re-inscribed in her photographs as an essence before our eyes – essence being that spark of pure consciousness and awareness that grounds our place on this earth, the silent (still?), timeless presence that flows underneath all time, space, place.

Mann is attuned to these vibrations of history, energy and spirit. She has grounded herself and her family in the place of the American South. She knows the region intimately, much as I would hope to know the stories and history of the city of Melbourne where I live. Her roots are there and she draws sustenance and inspiration from its history, the region’s blemishes in the continuum.

As the exhibition guide observes,

“The American South, a region steeped in tradition and mythology, occupies a central place in her imagination… The landscape is never neutral; it is permeated by a complex collective memory.

One of the strengths of her work lies in the interplay between the intimate and the collective. The photographs of her children belong to the family sphere. However, they question universal themes such as childhood, vulnerability or identity construction. Similarly, the landscapes of Virginia allude to American national history, despite being linked to Mann’s personal history and sense of belonging to that territory. In this way, the intimate and the political are inextricably linked.”

In this sense “knowing your place” has a double meaning, both knowing the place where you live / accepting your position or social status without trying to change it or question authority. “Historically and socially, it implies that a person should remain submissive or compliant to superiors rather than speak out or challenge the system.” Thus place – both territory (intimate) and tyranny (political) – is pertinent in terms of the history of racism and subjugation in the American South. The intimate and political inextricably linked.

As I observed in an earlier piece of writing on the artist’s work, “Mann’s sense of fusedness with others, both alive and dead, now and then, and here and there, leads to a temporal complexity bound up with the notion of history and collective memory. How she iterates such concepts in her sensual photographs “with affection” is at the core of her art practice: the discontinuity of life in all its contexts, made eternal.”1

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Marcus Bunyan. “(Un)seeing: the quality of the affection … that has carved the trace in the mind,” on the exhibition ‘Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings’ at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, March – May, 2018 on the Art Blart website May 25, 2018 [Online] Cited 08/10/2026

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.”

William Wordsworth “Mutability” Ecclesiastical Sketches 1822

“A few signs, cosmic convergences, emerge in Sally Mann’s images, distilled like sunspots; brief, bright disturbances that alter the permanence of things, piercing and destabilising their meaning. A dark gash in the trunk of a tree, a bite mark, black orbs in the shape of bullet holes that pierce the image against a battlefield backdrop -these vivid marks are redolent of the words written by William Faulkner in The Sound and The Fury (1929). They speak of dark visions and plumb the horrific remnants of the American Civil War, of the crimes and violence perpetrated against minorities, of Emmett Till’s martyrdom on the banks of the Tallahatchie River, the great burnt swamps of the South, of segregation, slavery and racism. Here, in Virginia and the Deep South, history and human memory lie still smouldering in the depths of the earth. Sally Mann’s images are crystalline impressions, imprints bearing these deep truths that she brings up to our eyes. They will live on through the centuries, and enrich our collective memory.”

Anonymous. “Sally Mann. Macula et Materia,” on the diChroma photography website Nd [Online] Cited 02/10/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Installation view of the exhibition 'Sally Mann. Macula et materia' at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain, July - October, 2026

Installation view of the exhibition 'Sally Mann. Macula et materia' at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain, July - October, 2026 showing at left, photographs from Sally Mann's series 'Virginia'; and at right, photographs from her series 'Immediate Family'

Installation views of the exhibition Sally Mann. Macula et materia at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain, July – October, 2026 showing in the bottom image at left, photographs from Sally Mann’s series Virginia; and at right, photographs from her series Immediate Family

Installation views of the exhibition Sally Mann. Macula et materia at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain, July – October, 2026 showing in the bottom image photographs from Sally Mann’s series Faces

Installation view of the exhibition Sally Mann. Macula et materia at Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran, San Sebastián, Spain, July – October, 2026 showing from left to right, Sally Mann’s Lisa and the dog (1983-1985, below); Jenny Hanging (1983-1985, below); and Cindy and the Dog Statue (1983-1985, below)

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Lisa and the dog
1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Jenny Hanging
1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Cindy and the Dog Statue
1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (born in Lexington, Virginia, 1951) is one of the most important figures in contemporary American photography. Active since the late sixties, she has built up a consistent and demanding body of work that primarily focuses on her native region of the American South, which she continues to explore. She has received many awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, and her work is now held in the collections of major international institutions.

From the outset, Sally Mann has been part of a photographic tradition that pays attention to the materiality of the medium and its place in history. Self-taught, she developed an early practice based on the use of large-format cameras, which demand patience, precision and technical rigour. This choice proved decisive, as it structures her relationship with time, her subjects and the landscape, imbuing her images with a particular density that is uniquely Mann’s.

The Macula et Materia exhibition at Kutxa Fundazioa Artegunea offers a journey through the major series that define her oeuvre. Among others, it brings together At Twelve (1983-1985), Immediate Family (1984-1994), landscapes of Virginia (1992-1996), Georgia (1996) and the Deep South (1998), as well as later works such as Faces (2004), Proud Flesh (2006-2015), Delta (2016), Platinum Stones (2022) and Goshen (2025). These series demonstrate the continuity of the artist’s concerns despite the apparent diversity of the themes addressed: childhood, family, landscape, historical memory, illness, decay and corporeality.

The creation of the At Twelve series represents one of the most significant moments in her career. Produced in her native region, it features portraits of twelve-year-old girls photographed in their everyday environments. The images explore the transition from childhood to adolescence, a time of instability and identity transformation, without any idealisation at all. Mann established here a working method based on collaboration with her models and the use of minimal staging, in which domestic or rural spaces play a defining role.

However, it is with Immediate Family that Sally Mann achieved international recognition and also media visibility marked by controversy. Produced over a period of ten years, the series documents the daily lives of her three children on the family property in Virginia. When the book was published in 1992, it sparked an intense debate in the United States because some critics considered it to be a transgression of social norms regarding the representation of childhood.

From the early 1990s onwards, Sally Mann shifted her focus to landscape photography without abandoning her concerns regarding history and time. The series dedicated to Virginia, Georgia and the Deep South mark a decisive turning point. In them, she photographed places associated with the American Civil War (1861-1865), slavery and racial segregation. Far from producing a strictly historical document, she offers a visual meditation on the persistence of the past in the landscape.

Human presence is often absent from these images, yet history inhabits them. Battlefields, swamps, rivers and forests are photographed as surfaces charged with memory. Mann occasionally uses antique processes, particularly wet collodion, a 19th-century technique that involves manually applying a chemical solution to a glass plate. The process, creating imperfections, fogging and alterations, enhances the material dimension of the image, establishing a direct link with the history of photography. Chemical accidents thus become an integral part of the work’s meaning, suggesting erosion, degradation and the fragility of traces.

The question of American history, particularly that of the South, is central to these works. The landscapes photographed are associated with episodes linked to violence. Rather than depicting these events directly, Sally Mann suggests their persistence through topography and light. Her approach therefore differs from traditional photojournalism or documentary photography, prioritising a form of visual meditation on the layers of the past.

This reflection on time continues in later works such as Faces and Proud Flesh. The first brings together a series of portraits in which the face is envisaged as a territory for recording time. Proud Flesh, images of her husband Larry Mann, who suffers from a Muscular Dystrophy, an untreatable muscle-wasting disease, explores the body’s progressive degeneration, physical fragility and the enduring nature of the marital bond. The body appears as a place where time is inscribed biologically, reminiscent of landscapes marked by history.

Through these different series, Sally Mann has created a body of work structured around several consistent themes: geographical roots in the American South, focus on the physical nature of the photographic medium, exploration of the relationship between personal memory and collective history and, finally, contemplation of the passage of time. Her use of antique photographic processes is far from merely an aesthetic choice, but part of an inquiry into photography as a trace.

The exhibition Macula et Materia highlights this coherence. By bringing together portraits, landscapes and studies of the body, it demonstrates that themes in Sally Mann’s work are not compartmentalised, but rather participate in a single enquiry into memory, transmission and disappearance. The American South is not merely a backdrop; it constitutes the historical and cultural context for which the artist constructs her work. The history of slavery, the Civil War and racial violence are present as a structural reality whose effects extend into the present day.

Consequently, Sally Mann’s work is framed within both an American photographic tradition – paying attention to landscape and national identity – and a personal inquiry into family, the body and loss. By articulating these dimensions, she creates work that questions the very conditions of visual memory: how can an image capture that which is no longer visible? How can time be inscribed onto a fixed surface?

More than a simple retrospective, Macula et Materia helps us understand the continuity of a trajectory spanning more than five decades. Rather than taking a strictly poetic or symbolic approach, Sally Mann’s work unfolds as a historical and material investigation of territory, the body and self-image.

Immediate Family: Childhood and Temporality

Between 1984 and 1994, Sally Mann created this series dedicated to her three children: Emmett, Jessie and Virginia. Taken in a rural setting, the photographs show the children playing, injured, pensive or absorbed in their activities. The series sparked significant controversy upon its publication, in some cases because of the childrens’ nudity, and in others because of the viewer’s feelings that the approach presented a problematic staging of childhood.

Nonetheless, beyond the controversy, the series belongs to a tradition of family portraiture, questioning the boundary between private life and public space. It also reflects on vulnerability, the construction of identity and family memory because the images do not necessarily resemble spontaneous family photographs, as they are carefully composed. The children often participated in the construction of the image, in some cases inspired by classical pictorial references.

Childhood is presented here as an intermediate stage, situated between freedom and the nascent awareness of finitude. The bodies are simultaneously powerful and fragile.

A fundamental aspect of this series is the suppression of contemporary temporal markers. Clothing, modern objects and period details are either absent or reduced to a minimum so that the images acquire a timeless quality, making the children seem as though they belong to an indeterminate, almost mythical time.

Photography here becomes a tool for suspending time. It captures a precise instant while simultaneously inscribing it within an extended duration. In Mann’s work, childhood is not merely a biological period; it is a symbolic territory.

Faces: Portraiture and Finitude

In 2004, Sally Mann began her Faces series, featuring intimate portraits of her adult children. The faces are framed closely, often bathed in soft light. Long exposure times produce a slight stillness and occasionally an opacity in the gaze.

Departing from the narrative energy of Immediate Family, these portraits introduce a more explicit reflection on the passage of time. The frontal presentation of the faces alludes to certain ancient traditions of funerary portraiture. The model’s fixed stare establishes a direct relationship with the viewer. The focus is no longer on capturing a moment of childhood, but on questioning the permanence of identity in the face of transformation.

Photography acts as a trace and paradoxical device in Faces: it captures while simultaneously pointing to future disappearance. The faces are recorded with almost sculptural precision, yet they are also subject to progressive alteration through changes in light and exposure time.

This theme would continue in the self-portraits Sally Mann produced later. The photographer’s aging body, in turn, becoming an object of exploration.

Proud Flesh: The Body and Illness

In the series Proud Flesh (2006-2015), Sally Mann photographed her husband, Larry Mann, who suffers from a degenerative muscular disease. The images show a body marked by the beginning of an inevitable and irreversible physical deterioration: muscle atrophy, fragility and loss of mobility.

Rather than adopting a clinical documentary approach, Mann treats the body with almost sculptural care. Light underscores volumes, folds and tensions. The illness is not aestheticised but integrated into a reflection on human vulnerability and dignity.

Materiality as Thought

One of Sally Mann’s key contributions is the importance she places on photographic matter. Chemical runoff, stains and alterations are not defects to be corrected. They are part of the work’s meaning.

Using antique processes such as wet collodion acts in favour of the work, reinforcing the image’s materiality, underlining the material and unstable nature of photography. Chemical alterations become visible signs of time in action. Rather than presenting a linear narrative, her work reveals cycles: birth, transformation, disappearance. Each image captures a moment while simultaneously reminding us that all presence is transient. It questions the memory inscribed in places and bodies, transforming photography into a means of reflecting on the human condition. Photography somehow ceases to be merely a record of reality and becomes a physical object subject to chemical processes, accidents and imperfection.

This approach aligns her work with a pictorial tradition in which the material trace – the brushstroke, the drip, the impasto – is an integral part of the work. Sally Mann’s work therefore belongs to a photographic tradition that transcends mere representation.

The Influence of the American South

The American South, a region steeped in tradition and mythology, occupies a central place in her imagination. This duality is evident in Sally Mann’s work: natural beauty and historical violence coexist. The landscape is never neutral; it is permeated by a complex collective memory.

Sally Mann does not seek to illustrate a historical or theoretical discourse. She creates open images, inviting meditative interpretation. Each image is the result of a lengthy and arduous process. This temporal aspect of production is reflected in how the images are perceived: viewers are invited to look slowly.

Sally Mann’s work explores the relationship between time, memory and matter. Through landscapes of the American South, the faces of her children, her husband’s ailing body or her self-portraits, she examines human fragility and the enduring nature of traces.

Goshen: The Zero Degree of Color

In the Goshen series (2025), Sally Mann quite literally pushes color to its furthest limits, even to its ultimate point of exhaustion and extinction. Here, color survives only as the residual idea of itself, a kind of afterimage or lingering trace.

The images of these abandoned places are haunted by the lives that once inhabited them. Everything seems to be slowly drained of its narrative substance, as though subjected to a silent hemorrhage. Nothing happens; things remain suspended, floating, in a state of dissolution.

The texture and almost pointillist density of the images evoke both the earliest autochromes and Turner’s Pictures of Nothing: matter held in suspension, atmosphere, the density of air, the vibration of light. Barely an oscillation. Color is out of breath; it fades away without the slightest regret.

Reality appears sparingly before gradually withdrawing, and the image slowly slips toward a form of abstraction, ultimately resolving into a nearly monochrome image of faintly tinted white. The imperceptible final breath of color inevitably recalls the paintings of Robert Ryman, where the erased trace of a former image still persists.

It is here that Mann reaches the zero degree of color.

Exhibition guide from Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Jessie Bites
1985
From the series Immediate Family
Gelatin silver print
50.8 x 61cm
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
The Last Time Emmett Modelled Nude
1987
From the series Immediate Family
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Night Blooming Cereus
1988
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Emmett, Jesse and Virginia
1989
Gelatin silver print
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61cm)
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Holding Virginia
1989
From the series Immediate Family
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Untitled (Scarred Tree)
1998
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Untitled (Three Drips)
1998
From the series Deep South
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Untitled (Swamp Bones)
1998
From the series Deep South
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Cold Harbor Battle
2003
From the series Battlefields
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Emmett #3
2004
From the series Faces
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Virginia #9
2004
From the series Faces
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Was Ever Love
2009
Gelatin silver print
38.1 x 34.3cm
Gelatin silver print
© Sally Mann

Sally Mann. Macula et materia exhibition poster

Kutxa Fundazioa Tabakaleran
Plaza de las cigarreras, 1 (Edificio Tabakalera)
20012 Donostia / San Sebastián

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays: 11.00- 13.00 and 16.00-20.00
Closed Mondays

Kutxa Fundazioa website

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Exhibition: ‘Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography’ at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 28th July – 4th October, 2026

Curator: Alexander Moore, Creative Producer, Dulwich Picture Gallery

Artists: Berenice Abbott, Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke‑White, Ted Croner, Imogen Cunningham, Bruce Davidson, Roy DeCarava, William Eggleston, Morris Engel, Walker Evans, Louis Faurer, Lee Friedlander, John Gutmann, Lewis Hine, Peter Hujar, André Kertész, William Klein, Dorothea Lange, Saul Leiter, Arthur Leipzig, Rebecca Lepkoff, Helen Levitt, Mary Ellen Mark, Elaine Mayes, Lisette Model, Nicholas Nixon, Ruth Orkin, Ed Ruscha, Aaron Siskind, Herbert Snitzer, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee, Edward Weston and Garry Winogrand

Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009)
New York
1972
© Film Document LLC, courtesy Zander Galerie, Cologne/ Paris

A bonus mid-week posting on Art Blart.

Some well-known favourites sprinkled with photographs unknown to me:

Berenice Abbott’s Exchange Place, New York (1933)
Margaret Bourke‑White’s Augusta, Georgia (1936)
Morris Engel’s Harlem Merchant, New York (1937)
Louis Faurer’s Looking at the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center (1949)
Saul Leiter’s Orange Umbrella (c. 1950)
William Klein’s Happy Days Bar, 3rd Avenue, New York (1954)
Peter Hujar’s Richie (1985)

I thought I knew most of Hujar’s photographs but not this one!

My favourite of the photographs I haven’t seen before is Roy DeCarava’s Hallway (1953), a moody evocation of tenement life in an American city.

So many images so little time!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“The exhibition as a whole retells the American narrative of the city – almost all of the photographers here are first- or second-generation European immigrants. It also shows how photography became a way for artists to deal with the overwhelming nature of the city, to try to take hold of it, to make it their own – or try, like Garry Winogrand, to disappear into it completely, to come closer to “not existing” as the photographer described his process, a quote emphasised on the exhibition wall. Portrait of a City is about the multiplicity of quiet-but-dazzling instants that happen every day – like Peter Hujar’s Richie, standing to reflect for a second in the rain on a street in New York at night, raindrops glimmering on a car windscreen.”

Charlotte Jansen. “Portrait of a City review – master photographers capture the US cityscape in all its grime, grit and glory,” on The Guardian website Wed 29 Jul 2026 [Online] Cited 26/09/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Steerage
1907

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
42nd Street and Sixth Avenue
1929
Gelatin silver print
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Step into a century of American city life through photographs that capture the people who built, inhabited, and transformed urban spaces into living, breathing communities.

The exhibition explores one hundred years of American urban life through the people who lived, worked, and moved through its streets. Featuring works by 34 influential photographers from 1907 to 2012, the exhibition traces how photography evolved alongside the modern city, capturing individuals and communities shaped by and shaping their environments.

Photography and the American City

Set in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, the photographs reveal cities as dynamic stages for social change. From mass immigration and industrial growth to moments of counterculture and protest, photographers used urban spaces to examine identity, labour, and belonging. Adapting the traditions of portraiture, they recorded faces and lives that reflect the inner story of a nation in flux.

Artists and Highlights

Highlights include works by Alfred Stieglitz, Helen Levitt, Dorothea Lange, Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Bruce Davidson. Seen together, these portraits and cityscapes form a collective narrative that is both intimate and expansive, capturing the human experience at the heart of America’s evolving cities.

Partners and Collections

The exhibition is presented in special partnership with The Savings Bank Foundation DNB, drawing from its outstanding collection of twentieth-century American photography, with thanks to our partner, Lillehammer Art Museum.

Text from the Dulwich Picture Gallery website

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Riding the Ball High up on Empire State
c. 1930
Courtesy of The Savings Bank Foundation DNB Collection, on deposit at Lillehammer Art Museum

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Main Street, Saratoga Springs, New York
1931
Gelatin silver print

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
The Maypole (Empire State Building)
1932
Gelatin silver print

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Exchange Place, New York
1933
Gelatin silver print

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) 'White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco' 1933

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
White Angel Breadline, San Francisco, California
1933
Gelatin silver print

Margaret Bourke‑White (American, 1904-1971)
Augusta, Georgia
1936
Gelatin silver print
© Estate of Margaret Bourke-White

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Human Erosion in California (Migrant Mother)
March 1936
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Loews Facade, Harlem
1937
Gelatin silver print

Morris Engel (American, 1918-2005)
Harlem Merchant, New York
1937
Gelatin silver print

Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009)
New York
c. 1939
Gelatin silver print

Rebecca Lepkoff (American, 1916-2014)
New York
1949
© Estate of Rebecca Lepkoff, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

William Klein (French born America, b. 1928)
Happy Days Bar, 3rd Avenue, New York
1954
Gelatin silver print

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Orange Umbrella
c. 1950
© Saul Leiter Foundation

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Postmen
1952
© Saul Leiter Foundation

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Man with Straw Hat
c. 1955
© Saul Leiter Foundation

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Harlem
1960
© Saul Leiter Foundation

Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015)
The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California
1987
© Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation

Dulwich Picture Gallery announces Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography

In summer 2026, Dulwich Picture Gallery will present a major new exhibition Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography, bringing together more than 100 landmark works by some of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. The exhibition will chart the dramatic evolution of American city life from the early 1900s to the close of the 20th century. Featuring images from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, the exhibition draws exclusively from the DNB Saving Bank Foundation’s collection in Norway.

Showcasing 38 leading photographers of the modern era, Portrait of a City traces how photography has shaped our collective understanding of the American city.

It demonstrates how rapid urban expansion catalysed the medium’s rise as a tool to document changing conditions, presenting a compelling visual account of a nation in motion.

The exhibition opens in the early 1900s, a moment when American cities expanded rapidly through mass immigration, industrial growth and new forms of labour, drawing photographers to sites of social and economic shift. Evolving skylines became symbols of change, captured in works such as Lewis Hine’s Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, 1930. At the same time, photographers like Alfred Stieglitz were redefining the medium’s artistic potential; his seminal image The Steerage, 1907, reveals the realities of labour and class with striking immediacy.

After the Wall Street Crash in 1929, photography took on an urgent social role, recording mass unemployment, poverty and migration. Iconic works, including Dorothea Lange’s White Angel Breadline, San Francisco, 1933 and Margaret Bourke‑White’s Augusta, Georgia, 1936 trace the profound impact of the Great Depression, bringing into sharp focus the harsh realities of the following years for people across the United States.

Here, the exhibition changes gear, tracing the rise of photographic modernism through artists such as Walker Evans, whose work helped secure photography’s place within the modern art world. Alongside this, the influence of the New York Photo League is represented through photographers including Weegee, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, Aaron Siskind, Rebecca Lepkoff and Lisette Model, whose socially engaged images document the rhythms and pressures of everyday urban life. Also presented are intimate portrayals of marginalised communities in New York, including Helen Levitt and Saul Leiter’s studies of street life and Roy DeCarava’s tender images of Black life in Harlem.

The exhibition then turns to artists documenting the dramatic physical changes reshaping American cities in the mid‑20th century. Works by Berenice Abbott record the evolution of New York’s skyline, setting new architectural forms against the city’s historic fabric, while Arthur Leipzig’s Divers, East River, 1948 captures how peripheral urban spaces became sites of leisure and community.

Moving into the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition explores how photographers responded to a nation undergoing cultural and political transformation. Artists such as Ed Ruscha and Robert Adams examined the structures and systems of the built environment, while Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander brought new immediacy to street photography. This section also presents powerful depictions of life on the margins, including Mary Ellen Mark’s The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, 1987, which confronts the realities of homelessness, and Peter Hujar’s Richie, 1985, offering an intimate insight into communities affected by the AIDS crisis.

Portrait of a City concludes with a presentation of Bruce Davidson’s renowned Subway series, 1980-85, whose vivid, unflinching photographs capture the diversity, individuality and raw immediacy of New York life, an enduring hallmark of the photographer’s career.

Alexander Moore, Creative Producer, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Curator of the exhibition, said: “American photography offers one of the most vivid and influential records of the modern city, and by bringing this remarkable collection to London, we invite audiences to reflect on how the rhythms, challenges and possibilities of urban life continue to echo through our own – a century of human stories told with extraordinary immediacy and invention.”

Anders Bjørnsen, Manager, Art & Culture, DNB Savings Bank Foundation, said: “These photographs capture the profound social and cultural changes that have shaped the modern American city. We are pleased to share this important collection with new audiences through our collaboration with Dulwich Picture Gallery, and to highlight photography’s unique ability to tell human stories across time and place.”

Jennifer Scott, Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery, said: “The spirit, aspiration, and reality of the 20th Century are captured in these photographs. Meticulously collected over the past ten years by the DNB Savings Bank Foundation, the exhibition is testament to this outstanding Norwegian art collection and creates exciting visual links to the landscape paintings in our Collection.”

Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography is curated by Alexander Moore, Creative Producer, Dulwich Picture Gallery (Curator of Unearthed: Photography’s Roots, 2021). The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-colour publication written and edited by Alexander Moore and Nils Ohlsen, Director, Lillehammer Art Museum, published by Dulwich Picture Gallery, June 2026.

Press release from the Dulwich Picture Gallery

Arthur Leipzig (American, 1918-2014)
Divers, East River
1948
Gelatin silver print
Arthur Leipzig/Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Louis Faurer (American, 1916-2001)
Looking at the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center
1949
Gelatin silver print
Louis Faurer/Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009)
Hallway
1953
Gelatin silver print

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
John F. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles
1960
From the portfolio Big Shots
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Teenage couple on Hudson Street, N.Y.C. 1963
1963
Gelatin silver print

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Richie
1985
Gelatin silver print
© Peter Hujar/Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society, New York/DACS London

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Untitled
1980-85
From the Subway series
Dye-transfer/chromogenic print

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day.”

“It’s a great social equalizer … From the moving train above ground, we see glimpses of the city, and as the train moves into the tunnels, sterile fluorescent light reaches into the stony gloom and we, trapped inside, all hang on together”

“I feel that there was a passion and a purpose to photographing in the subway. We were all in the same boat and I was just expressing the everyday occurrences in the subway at that point in 1980. It’s a different subway, although you still have to watch your back.”

~ Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Untitled
1980-85
From the Subway series
Dye-transfer/chromogenic print

Dulwich Picture Gallery
Gallery Road, London
SE21 7AD
Phone: 020 8693 5254

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Mondays (except Bank Holiday Mondays)

Dulwich Picture Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘New Woman, New Vision. Women Photographers of the Bauhaus’ at the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung at the Museum für Fotografie, Berlin

Exhibition dates: 17th April – 4th October, 2026

Curators: Kristin Bartels, with Carla Huttenloher serving as the assistant (or curatorial) curator

Artists featured in the exhibition: Gertrud Arndt; Ellen Auerbach; Irene Bayer; Lotte Beese; Irena Blühov; Marianne Brandt; Lotte Gerson-Collein; Barbara Crane (New Bauhaus); Margarete Dambeck-Keller; Charlotte Grunert; Ise Gropius; Ise Gropius; Toni von Haken-Schrammen; Florence Henri; Catherine Hinkle (New Bauhaus); Irene Hoffmann; Hilde Hubbuch; Grit Kallin-Fischer; Judit Kárász; Ivana Meller-Tomljenović; Etel Mittag-Fodor; Lucia Moholy; Lony Neumann; Ricarda Schwerin; Ré Soupault; Grete Stern; Elsa Thiemann; Else Tholstrup (New Bauhaus); Mili Thompson (New Bauhaus); Edith Tudor-Hart

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Architekt – Walter Gropius Bauhaus-Gebäude Dessau (1925-1926) (Architect: Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building Dessau (1925-1926))
1927
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

I am always learning about photography.

This is the case with some of the female photographers in this posting, many unknown to me. What a joy it is to see their photographs.

It is a blessing to be able to study their life story, to imbibe (take in ideas and knowledge) of their art, to acknowledge and admire these New Women who had a passion for seeing the world in new ways, using photography as an artistic and social instrument.

I know the work of that accomplished artist Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) who made focused, thoughtful, beautiful photographs; Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983); socialist Edith Tudor-Hart (British born Austria, 1908-1973); modernist, surrealist Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999); and the ever inventive Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000) who has never had a posting on Art Blart because of the paucity of exhibitions on her work.

What I didn’t know were the photographs of Etel Mittag-Fodor (Hungarian, 1905-2005), Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973), Ivana Meller-Tomljenović (Croatia, 1906-1988) – I love all these double-barrelled surnames! – Lotte Collein (German, 1905-1995), Lony Neumann (German, 1902-1996), Ré Soupault (French-German born Poland, 1901-1996) and Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981).

How exciting and a little dangerous it must have been to have studied at the Bauhaus during this period,1 early 1920s-1933 (the photography course established in 1929), before the “school’s leadership voted to dissolve it in July 1933 under intense police raids, harassment, and crushing political pressure from the Nazi regime who labelled its avant-garde, modern style as “degenerate”.” (Google AI)

To be part of a school that contained an incredible coterie of friends and artists which, then and now, continues to construct important social, cultural and artistic legacies.

Through knowledge hopefully wisdom.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ “Under the Nazi regime, about twenty Bauhauslers are known to have been killed in prison or concentration camps. Some emigrated, while others adapted and participated in propaganda exhibitions and design fairs, produced photographic and graphic works such as magazine covers, movie posters, and designed furniture, carpets, household objects and even busts of Hitler. Of 119 teaching staff c. 15 emigrated between 1933 and 1938. Of the c. 1,250 students who were enrolled when Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately 900 are thought to have remained in Germany. Of those, 188 joined the National Socialist Party (170 men and 18 women), 14 were part of the brown shirts, 12 joined the SS, and one was involved in the design of the crematoria at Auschwitz.”

Anonymous. “Bauhaus,” on the Wikipedia website Nd [Online] Cited 18/09/2026

Many thankx to the Museum für Fotografie for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Architekt – Walter Gropius Bauhaus-Gebäude Dessau (1925-1926) Balkon am Ateliergebäude (Architect – Walter Gropius Bauhaus building Dessau (1925-1926) Balcony on the studio building
1926
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Porträt Lou Scheper Im Profil von links (Portrait of Lou Scheper in profile from left)
1927
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Porträt Eva Weininger auf der Treppe zur Veranda eines Meisterhauses in Dessau (Portrait of Eva Weininger on the steps to the veranda of a master’s house in Dessau)
1927
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
László Moholy-Nagy
1925-1926
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Selbstporträt (Self-portrait)
1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)

Lucia Moholy, née Schulz, was born in Prague on 18 January 1894. After studying art history and philosophy, she began working as an editor and proofreader at various publishing houses in Germany in 1915. In 1921 she married the artist László Moholy-Nagy. The couple experimented with photograms and wrote texts on the theory of photography. In 1923 Moholy-Nagy received a teaching position at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Lucia Moholy trained in Otto Eckner’s photography studio there, and she additionally attended photo and printing courses at Leipzig’s Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trade. Between 1923 and 1928, Moholy photographed the Bauhaus: buildings, workshops, products, teachers and students. Her photos continue to shape the image of the school today. In 1928 the couple left the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin. They separated one year later. In 1930 Moholy became head of the photography class at the Itten-School in Berlin. At the same time, she started gathering material for a history of photography. In 1933 her partner, the communist politician Theodor Neubauer, was arrested by the Nazis and Moholy had to flee Berlin. By way of Prague, Vienna and Paris, she reached London, where she established herself as a portrait photographer. Her book “A Hundred Years of Photography” appeared in 1939 and became a bestseller. She began documenting British archival material on microfilm in 1941 and later worked for UNESCO. In 1959 Lucia Moholy moved to Zurich, where she worked as an author and art critic. She died there on 17 May 1989.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Installation view of the exhibition New Woman, New Vision. Women Photographers of the Bauhaus at the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung at the Museum für Fotografie, April – October 2026, showing the work of Lucia Moholy and Marianne Brandt

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Porträt Clara Zetkin (Portrait of Clara Zetkin)
c. 1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Mädchen mit Kamera beim Fotograeren (Lucia Tochter von Yella und Hans Curjel) (Girl with camera taking photos (Lucia, daughter of Yella and Hans Curjel))
c. 1929
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Frau auf Treppe Jugoslawien (Woman on stairs, Yugoslavia)
1932
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Outstanding women photographers have been around since the invention of photography in the early 19th century. They experimented with photographic and artistic techniques and probed the boundaries of the new medium. So too did the women photographers of the Bauhaus. They observed the world around them through the camera lens and often captured subjects from novel and unconventional perspectives. The spectrum of their artistic production ranges from figurative portraits and architectural photography to abstract photographic experimentation.

The exhibition features some 300 photographs from the collection of the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin. Many people today are familiar with the iconic images, but only few are aware of the women who recorded them. With this exhibition, the Bauhaus-Archiv celebrates the significant contribution of these women artists and their photographic oeuvre for the first time. The photographs by these Bauhaus artists will be complemented by others produced by women artists from the Institute of Design in Chicago (New Bauhaus), the successor institution of the Bauhaus in the USA.

Even now in the 21st century, women artists continue to explore the multifaceted potential of photography. Like the Bauhaus women before them, they seek to capture the present day in the photographic moment while challenging the conventional forms of the medium. For this exhibition, the Bauhaus-Archiv has invited three contemporary women artists – Kalinka Gieseler, Caroline Kynast and Sinta Werner – to engage in dialogue with the historic photographs

A special exhibition of the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in cooperation with the Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Text from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin website

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983)
Selbstporträt mit Lilien (Self-portrait with lilies)
c. 1923
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983)

Marianne Brandt, née Liebe, was born in Chemnitz on 1 October 1893. In 1911 she began studying painting at the School for Fine Arts in Weimar. In 1919 she married the painter Erik Brandt. The couple lived together in Oslo and Paris for a number of years. After she returned to Germany, Brandt initially studied sculpture in Weimar. In 1924 the artist switched to the Bauhaus, where she was trained by László Moholy-Nagy in the metal workshop. She celebrated her first successes as a designer and became acting head of the workshop in 1928. Inspired by the Parisian avant-garde as well as by Moholy-Nagy, Brandt also began to occupy herself intensively with photography. She created self-portraits, photocollages and experimental images. Instead of accepting an offer to receive training in Walter Peterhans’s photo class, she decided to leave the Bauhaus in 1929. Several of her photographs could be seen that same year in the section “Photography at the Bauhaus” at the “Film und Foto” exhibition in Stuttgart. After briefly working at Walter Gropius’s construction office in Berlin, Brandt worked as a designer for the Ruppelwerke metalware factory in Gotha until 1932. She continued to shoot photographs, particularly private ones. When the Nazis came to power, Brandt lost her job and returned back to Chemnitz. From 1949 to 1954, she taught at the University of Applied Arts in Dresden and the institute of industrial design at School of Art and Design Berlin-Weissensee. She then designed lamps and radiators for production in East Germany and once again dedicated her attention to painting and photography. Marianne Brandt died in Kirchberg on 18 June 1983.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983)
Selbstporträt (Self-portrait)
c. 1929
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983)
Selbstporträt mit Kamera im Atelier in der Kugel gespiegelt Bauhaus Dessau (Self-portrait with camera in the studio, reflected in the sphere, Bauhaus Dessau)
c. 1928-1929
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983)
Wartende Kinder (Waiting children)
1928
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Edith Tudor-Hart (British born Austria, 1908-1973)
Frau und Kind Wien (Woman and child Vienna)
c. 1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© Peter Suschitzky

Edith Tudor-Hart (British born Austria, 1908-1973)

Edith Tudor-Hart, née Suschitzky, was born in Vienna on 28 August 1908. Her father and uncle ran a left-wing bookstore in a working-class neighborhood. In 1925 her training as a Montessori educator led her to London for an internship. Tudor-Hart began studying at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1929, and she attended Walter Peterhans’s photography class there in 1930. During a 1931 stay in England, her connections to the Communist Party led to her deportation, and she returned to Vienna. There she produced photographs for the Soviet news agency TASS. Her social-documentary photo essays were published in periodicals such as the “Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ)” as well as “Kuckuck”. In 1933 she was arrested for spying for the Communist Party, and large portions of her photographic work were confiscated. She was able to avoid conviction by marrying the doctor Alexander Tudor-Hart. That same year, the couple emigrated to England, where their son was born in 1936. Tudor-Hart’s photography provided the family’s sole source of income while her husband was serving as a doctor in the Spanish Civil War. She concentrated on documentary photography. For example, she created a photo essay on child education for England and Wales’s Ministry of Education. Her continued espionage activities repeatedly drew the scrutiny of the British secret service. This constant surveillance led her to destroy large portions of her work. Impoverished, she moved to Brighton, where she worked as an antique dealer. Edith Tudor-Hart died there on 12 May 1973.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000)
Selbstporträt im Atelier Bauhaus Dessau (Self-portrait in the Bauhaus Dessau studio)
1926
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000)

Gertrud Arndt, née Hantschk, was born in Racibórz (Silesia, Poland) on 20 September 1903. Seeking to become an architect, she began working at the architectural office of Karl Meinhardt in Erfurt in 1919. She simultaneously attended the school of applied arts there. Arndt taught herself photography so that she could document buildings for the architectural office. In 1923 she began studying at the Bauhaus and trained in the weaving workshop. After her final exam in 1927, she stopped weaving and focused on photography again. That same year, she married fellow Bauhaus member and architect Alfred Arndt and moved to Probstzella in Thuringia. There she photographed his construction projects. At the same time, she also created private photographs and photocollages. In 1929 Alfred Arndt was offered a teaching position at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Gertrud Arndt set up a darkroom for herself in the masters’ house and began photographing the activities and life at the school. She created documentary and portrait photos as well as numerous self-portraits. Although Arndt was not a student in Walter Peterhans’s photo class, several of her images were shown together with works from his students in the 1930 travelling exhibition on the Bauhaus. Arndt had her first child in 1931. One year later, the couple returned to Probstzella and, from then on, Arndt devoted her time to her family. In 1948 they fled from the Soviet-occupied zone to western Germany. In 1979 an exhibition at the Folkwang Museum in Essen led to Arndt’s discovery as a photographer. Since that time, her works have been presented in a number of exhibitions and publications. Gertrud Arndt died in Darmstadt on 10 July 2000.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000)
Maskenfoto Nr. 16 (Mask photo no. 16)
1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Etel Mittag-Fodor (Hungarian, 1905-2005)
Materialstudie mit Spielzeugpistole, Zuckerstucken und Glas (Material study with toy gun, sugar cubes and glass)
1928
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Etel Mittag-Fodor (Hungarian, 1905-2005)

Etel Mittag-Fodor, née Fodor, was born in Zagreb on 28 December 1905, and grew up in Pécs and Budapest. In 1925 she began studying photography and graphic design at Vienna’s Federal Education and Research Institute for Graphics in Vienna, while also working part-time in a photo studio. In 1928 she decided to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where she attended Walter Peterhans’s photography class. She was in a relationship with fellow student Ernst Mittag, whom she married in 1930 to gain independence from her parents’ home and its rules. After Mittag-Fodor left the Bauhaus in 1932, she worked as a freelance photographer for clients, including the newspaper “Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ)”. She was also active in the antifascist resistance from 1933 on. As a Jew, she was no longer granted a work permit. In 1936 she and her husband fled to Pécs by way of Bratislava, where she earned money creating portraits of children. After the birth of their first son in 1938, the family emigrated to South Africa. There, Mittag-Fodor initially photographed architecture but soon began to work as a translator for financial reasons. At the same time, she assisted Ernst Mittag at his architectural office. She turned her attention to weaving in the mid-1960s. Etel Mittag-Fodor died in the Cape Town suburb of Wynberg on 13 August 2005.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Etel Mittag-Fodor (Hungarian, 1905-2005)
Albert Mentzel und Lotte Rothschild (Albert Mentzel and Lotte Rothschild)
c. 1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Etel Mittag-Fodor (Hungarian, 1905-2005)
“The Cat who walks alone”
Sarajevo, 1936
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973)
Hilde Rantzsch und Miriam Manuckiam (Hilde Rantzsch und Miriam Manuckiam)
1928
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973)
Selbstporträt mit Zigarette (Self-portrait with cigarette)
c. 1928
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973)

Grit Kallin-Fischer was born as Margit Vries in Frankfurt am Main on 26 April 1896. She received her first art lessons, focusing on landscapes and still lifes, at a boarding school in Belgium. In 1910 she began studying painting in Marburg and then continued under Lovis Corinth at Leipzig’s Academy for Graphic Art and Book Trade. She developed tuberculosis during the First World War and suffered from the after-effects for the rest of her life. In 1919 Kallin-Fischer went to Berlin, where she met the Russian musician Marik Kallin. The couple married in 1920, lived in London and separated after six years. In the autumn of 1927, Kallin-Fischer enrolled at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She began taking pictures there and developed portrait studies in the style of the New Vision. She also attended László Moholy-Nagy’s metal workshop and was involved with the Bauhaus stage, creating numerous portraits of its members. In late 1928, she went to Berlin with the American Bauhaus member Edward Fischer and continued to shoot photographs there. Several of her designs were published in the monthly graphic-design journal “Gebrauchsgraphik” in 1930; one year later, her works were shown at the exhibition “Foreign Advertising Photography” in New York. She married Edward Fischer in 1934 and emigrated to the US with him. Grit Kallin-Fischer gave up photography after 1945 and turned her attention to sculpture. She died in Newton, Pennsylvania, on 17 July 1973.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Grit Kallin-Fischer (German, 1897-1973)
Industrie Porzellan der Königlichen Porzellan Manufaktur, Berlin (Industrial porcelain from the Royal Porcelain Manufactory, Berlin)
c. 1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

The Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was a time of social and cultural upheaval. The young democracy was confronted not only with the consequences of World War I, but also a rapid succession of technical advances, the rise of new media and a society that was questioning traditional values.

Women’s role in society was changing as well. As voting rights were granted to women for the first time in November 1918, a new chapter of political participation began. It was also a time when more and more women aspired to financial independence and professional self-realisation. Photography offered them an ideal opportunity in both arenas – it promised artistic freedom and a living income. The camera became the tool of female self-empowerment.

By the late 19th century, photography had become a significant occupational field for women. Because it was a relatively young field, regarded as a handcraft and not yet academically anchored, photography offered women career opportunities at an early stage. Women were believed to have skills that were well-suited to certain photographic activities, such as portrait photography or retouching. Consequently, a growing number of women began learning the trade in photo studios. In 1890 the Berlin Lette Association started a photography course for women, and in 1905, the Teaching and Research Institute for Photography in Munich followed suit with institutional training for women photographers.

The number of women photographers rose steadily in the Weimar Republic. This occurred as an increasing number of higher education institutions began offering training courses in photography. The Bauhaus Dessau established a photography course in 1929. Many students – almost half of them women – received professional training there. Yet women photographers had been playing a central role at the Bauhaus even years before. In the early 1920s, photography was used to advertise the products and works created by the influential school of art, design and architecture – and many of those photos were taken by professional women photographers, such as Paula Stockmar, the women-managed Atelier Hüttich und Oemler, and Lucia Moholy. The increasing prevalence of the small-format camera after 1925 sparked a surge of interest in the medium among the students. Many female students began observing their surroundings through the camera lens and captured new and unusual perspectives. While many of these photos have since become world-famous, the women who took them have often been forgotten.

The Exhibition

The exhibition “New Woman, New Vision. Women Photographers of the Bauhaus” is the first ever to explore the extensive impact of these photographers and tell their story from a gender-historical perspective. The presentation, comprising some 300 works from 29 photographers from the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung collection, explores art- and media-historical questions and how they relate to such topics as authorship, visibility and social participation. The exhibition presents photographs by well-known figures such as Lucia Moholy and Florence Henri, as well as works by artists who have received less recognition, including Irene Hoffmann and Grit Kallin-Fischer. Not only does its scope extend beyond the era of the historic Bauhaus, it also highlights the later works by these remarkable artists. The presentation is supplemented by works by women artists from the Institute of Design in Chicago, the American successor institution to the Bauhaus founded by Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy in 1937.

Key Themes

One of the central themes of the exhibition is portrait photography. The chapters “Viewing the Self” and “Woman’s Images” examine how the photographers and their fellow female classmates presented themselves against the backdrop of society’s evolving image of women. Oftentimes they referred to the ideal of the New Woman – which had become ubiquitous in the Weimar Republic – and translated it into the modern visual imagery of New Vision. Another chapter sheds light on the photography lessons taught by Walter Peterhans at the Bauhaus. In portraits, landscapes, nature studies and still lifes, the students experimented with and selectively integrated photographic design elements into their works, e.g. textures, materiality, directed lighting and image sharpness. The chapter “Art and Experimentation” focuses specifically on experimental practice; photo collages and photograms offered forms of expression beyond what the camera could capture and illustrate how readily the women photographers embraced the avant-garde. The chapter “People and Countries” is dedicated to social-documentary and photo-journalistic works. The photos capture everyday life, social inequality and moments of political upheaval. They also show how the photographers, who were often forced into exile, safeguarded their work under changing political circumstances. The chapter “The Allure of Architecture” examines modern architectural photography. Unusual perspectives, extreme high- and low-angle shots, and close-ups helped architectural photography break away from its original documentary function and transform it into artistic and sometimes abstract visual compositions.

The exhibition shows how the women photographers of the Bauhaus used photography as an artistic and social instrument – for achieving greater self-determination, conducting artistic experimentation and documenting social and political realities. Its relevance today is evident in how integral these methods have become in contemporary art. The Berlin artists Kalinka Gieseler, Caroline Kynast and Sinta Werner engage in the discourse as contemporary voices. Like their historic role models, they too use photographic images to analyse space and society and probe the boundaries of the medium.

Relevance Today

When reflecting on women photographers and their life stories from a gender-critical perspective, the first question we encounter is what we mean by the term “women”. We do not mean a clearly defined or homogenous group, but rather a historical attribution that mirrors the respective social norms of the time. The biographies of these women photographers are as varied as their personal convictions, predilections and relationships. What they all have in common, however, is the traditional gender roles they were assigned which limited their career opportunities and even worsened them under National Socialism and in post-war Western Europe. In that male-dominated art world, their works were marginalised and driven from art-historical memory – a structurally induced invisibility, the effects of which are still felt today.

Against this background, we must ask what role exhibitions have that are specifically dedicated to women artists. Do we not run the risk of perpetuating existing attributions and designating female-perceived individuals once again as a special case? The answer is complex. Back in 1914 the art historian Emmy Voigtländer, reporting on the Leipzig exhibition “Das Haus der Frau”, remarked: ‘Perhaps in the future the most valuable outcome of these special exhibitions will be to prove their superfluousness, in that women’s achievements will gradually become a widely accepted part of general cultural activity where one recognises the value of the work and then of its creators […].’ Based on current figures, however, this goal has not yet been achieved. Recent studies show, such as one conducted by the Berlin initiative “fair share!”, that works by female-perceived persons and especially mothers are presented and collected less often and obtain lower market prices and less funding. As long as gender equality in the art world remains elusive, visibility in the form of such exhibitions will remain necessary – not to emphasise distinction, but as a means to combat structural forgetting.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung at the Museum für Fotografie website

Irene Bayer (American, 1898-1991)
Blick auf die Terrasse der Bauhaus-Kantine in Dessau (View onto the terrace of the Bauhaus Dessau canteen)
c. 1927
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Irene Bayer (American, 1898-1991)

Irene Bayer was born as Irene Angela Hecht in Chicago on 28 October 1898 and grew up in Budapest. In 1920 she began studying at the Berlin University of the Arts. She applied to the Bauhaus in 1923 but was not accepted. She then moved to Paris and audited classes at the Sorbonne and the École des Beaux-Arts. She established connections with the avant-garde there. In 1925 she married Bauhaus member Herbert Bayer. She then attended the preliminary course at the Bauhaus without being officially enrolled. In 1926 she began training as a photographer at the State Academy of Graphic Arts and Books in Leipzig. From then on, she documented life and work at the Bauhaus as well as her husband’s works. She additionally created portrait and advertising photos. Several of her images were used for Bauhaus publications. László Moholy-Nagy also published a number of her photos in his article “Photography as Light Design”. In 1928 the Bayers left the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin. In 1929 Irene Bayer’s work was presented at the “Film und Foto” exhibition in Stuttgart. She stopped working in photography when her daughter was born later that year; she had been separated from the child’s father, Herbert Bayer, since 1928. In 1938 Irene Bayer moved to the US, where she worked as a translator. She also briefly returned to Germany after the Second World War to work in this role for the American military administration in Munich. Irene Bayer died in Los Angeles on 12 July 1991.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Ivana Meller-Tomljenović (Croatia, 1906-1988)
Auf dem Bau (On the construction site)
1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Ivana Meller-Tomljenović (Croatia, 1906-1988)

Ivana Meller-Tomljenović, née Tomljenović, was born in Zagreb on 2 September 1906. As a young woman, she initially made a name for herself in the 1920s as a track-and-field athlete and basketball player. From 1924 to 1928, she completed a degree at the Royal College of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, graduating with honours. In 1929 she began studying metal design at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts. Impressed by a lecture given by Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer, Meller-Tomljenović transferred to the Bauhaus Dessau that same year. She experimented with photomontage and printing techniques in Walter Peterhans’s photography class. During this period, she also filmed life at the Bauhaus. Meller-Tomljenović joined the Communist Student Faction. She was among the students who left the Bauhaus when Hannes Meyer was dismissed in 1930. She initially worked in Berlin as a set designer for the Piscator Stage as well as a freelance graphic designer. In 1931 she briefly studied literature at the Sorbonne in Paris before moving to Prague. There she married Alfred Meller, the owner of a large advertising agency. After his death, Meller-Tomljenović returned to Yugoslavia in 1934. In Belgrade she taught art, graphic design and poster design until the 1960s. A late reception of her photographic work began in the 1980s. Ivana Meller-Tomljenović died in Zagreb on 30 August 1988.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Ivana Meller-Tomljenović (Croatia, 1906-1988)
Porträt Grete Krebs (Portrait of Grete Krebs)
1930

Ré Soupault (French-German born Poland, 1901-1996)
Menschenmenge am Bahnhof St. Lazare (Crowd at St. Lazare train station)
c. 1936
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Ré Soupault (French-German born Poland, 1901-1996)

Ré Soupault was born as Meta Erna Niemeyer in Bobolice (then German Pomerania, now Poland) on 29 October 1901. In 1921 she began studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar. She attended the preliminary course and then studied in the weaving workshop. At the Bauhaus, she also began to experiment with photography. In 1923 she met the avant-garde filmmaker Viking Eggeling and played a substantial role in the creation of his film “Diagonal Symphony”. After her brief marriage to the Dadaist Hans Richter in 1926, she worked as a fashion journalist for the magazine “Sport im Bild” in Berlin. Her work led her to Paris in 1929. There, she once again situated herself at the center of the artistic avant-garde and founded her fashion studio “Ré Sport” in 1931. In 1933 she met the author and journalist Philippe Soupault. While accompanying him on his journalistic tours, she began documenting them in photographs. The couple married in 1937. In 1938 they went to Tunis, where Ré Soupault continued with her social-documentary photography. Because of Philippe Soupault’s openly antifascist position, the couple had to flee, only narrowly evading German troops by escaping to Algeria. They travelled to New York in 1943 and separated in 1945. It was not until after the war that Ré Soupault learned parts of her photographic work had survived in Tunis. In 1948 Ré Soupault returned to Europe and lived in Basel, where she worked as a translator and radio commentator. She created her final photojournalistic work in the mid-1950s: photographs of German refugees from the former eastern territories. In 1958 she moved back to Paris and concentrated on her literary work. Ré Soupault died in Versailles on 12 March 1996.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999)
Porträt Claire Eckstein und Edwin Denby, deutsch-amerikanisches Tanzpaar (Portrait of Claire Eckstein and Edwin Denby, German-American dance couple)
1929
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999)

Grete Stern was born in Wuppertal on 9 May 1904. Due to her father’s work in international trade, she grew up in London as well as Wuppertal. After studying graphic design in Stuttgart and then briefly working, she began training as a photographer with Walter Peterhans in 1927. There she met Ellen Auerbach, who was also being taught by Peterhans. When he received a position at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1929, Stern and Auerbach founded the agency ringl + pit in his former studio. In 1932 Stern attended Peterhans’s photography class at the Bauhaus. Just one year later, her Jewish descent forced her to emigrate to London. Her British passport made her life in exile easier: she was able to work as a portrait photographer in England without facing any major bureaucratic obstacles. Stern and Auerbach worked together again in London for a short time. In 1935 Stern married the Argentinian photographer and former Bauhaus student Horacio Coppola. In 1936 they moved to Buenos Aires, where they opened a studio. Their home became a meeting place for the local art scene. After separating from Coppola, Stern worked as a freelance photographer. Among other things, she created surrealistic photomontages for the magazine “Idilio”. Stern founded the photography workshop of the Argentinian Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1956. Additionally, she documented the indigenous people of the Gran Chaco up into the 1960s. She stopped working as a photographer in 1985. Grete Stern died in Buenos Aires on 24 December 1999.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999)
Porträt Miriam Winslow, US-amerikanische Tänzerin (Portrait of Miriam Winslow, American dancer)
1944
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lotte Collein (German, 1905-1995)
Seeigel und Schatten einer Krebsschere (Sea urchin and shadow of a crab claw)
1928
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lotte Collein (German, 1905-1995)

Lotte Collein was born as Anny Amely Lotte Gerson in Essen on 17 March 1905. After training in a tailoring workshop in Munich and a hand-weaving workshop in Dachau, she attended the women’s social school in Bremen. In 1927 she began studying at the Bauhaus. She wanted to become an architect. After the preliminary course, she went to the furniture workshop and then switched to the department of architecture and interior design. Collein also began taking photographs during the period she spent at the Bauhaus. She recorded life at the school and documented works by other members of the Bauhaus, such as Erich Borchert. Although she did not attend any photography classes, one of her images was featured in an article about the current state of photography published by Walter Peterhans in the journal “ReD” in 1930. In the autumn of that year, Collein submitted a request for her diploma as an architect, but was rejected. She then left the school and moved to Vienna with the architect Edmund Collein. The two married in 1931, and their child was born that same year. In 1938 the couple returned to Germany. Collein, who was half Jewish and a communist, survived the Nazi period through her marriage to an “Aryan” husband. After the war, the couple moved to the Soviet-occupied sector of Berlin. While Edmund Collein pursued a career as an East German architectural official, Lotte Collein supported his work from behind the scenes. She died in Berlin on 3 May 1995.

Lony Neumann (German, 1902-1996)
Stillleben mit Zitrone und Perlenkette auf Webteppich (Still life with lemon and pearl necklace on a woven carpet)
1930
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Lony Neumann (German, 1902-1996)

Lony Neumann was born as Leoni Cohn in Bytom (then German Silesia, now Poland) on 15 April 1902. In 1919 she began an apprenticeship as a tailor and passed the final examination. Parallel to this, she attended courses at the Wrocław State Academy of Arts and Crafts, where she met and then married the student Theodor Neumann. After the couple moved to Leipzig, their son was born in 1926. In 1928 Neumann became a student at the Bauhaus Dessau. She attended Walter Peterhans’s photography class and the advertising workshop. Her role as a parent meant she was largely forced to carry out the assignments from her classes at the Bauhaus in Leipzig, where she continued to live. Neumann was already politically active at this point. She photographed workers and participated in left-wing demonstrations. In 1931 she separated from her husband. Together with her new partner, the architect and Bauhaus graduate Philipp Tolziner, she joined a group of Bauhaus students immigrating to Russia. She left her son with his father. From 1931 to 1938, she worked as an art journalist and designer in Moscow and continued to create photographs, particularly of women and children. She married the Russian painter Aleksandr Labas during this period. Neumann was presumably able to escape the Soviet state’s persecution of German immigrants under Stalin by withdrawing from the cultural public sphere: she began providing foreign-language lessons. After the Second World War, she worked as a translator. Lony Neumann died in Moscow on 27 February 1996.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Irene Hoffmann (American born Germany, 1903-1982)
Stillleben mit Orangen (Still life with oranges)
1932
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Irene Hoffmann (American born Germany, 1903-1982)

Irene Hoffmann, née Wallbrecht, was born in Hanover on 14 December 1903. In 1928 she became a student at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She studied in the advertising department and began attending classes taught by Walter Peterhans in 1932. In addition to photographs, graphic designs and experimental photograms, she also created collages during this period. She met the architecture student Hubert Hoffmann at the Bauhaus. The couple married in 1929. One of Irene Hoffmann’s works was presented at the Bauhaus’s travelling exhibition the following year. In 1933 she completed her studies at the Bauhaus with a diploma from the advertising workshop. She then ran a studio for advertising and portrait photography in Berlin together with fellow Bauhaus graduate Hannes Schmitt. She also did freelance work for the graphic and design studio of former Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy until 1934. Between 1934 and 1936, she created additional projects in the field of advertising-related graphic design together with Hubert Hoffmann. Irene Hoffmann emigrated to the US in 1936, but her husband remained in Germany. They were divorced in 1938. Irene Hoffmann died in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on 16 February 1982.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)
Funkturm Berlin (Berlin Radio Tower)
1930s
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)
Berlin Ruinen (Berlin Ruins)
c. 1945
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)

Elsa Thiemann, née Franke, was born in Toruń, then West Prussia, on 7 February 1910. In 1927 she began studying applied art at Berlin-Charlottenburg’s United State Schools for Fine and Applied Arts. In 1929 she transferred to the Bauhaus in Dessau. After her preliminary training, she studied in Joost Schmidt’s advertising workshop and, from the summer of 1930, in Walter Peterhans’s photography class. In 1931 she completed her studies with a Bauhaus diploma. From then on, Thiemann worked in Berlin as a freelance photojournalist and captured life in the city. In 1944 she accepted a position as a secretary in the Berlin editorial office of the Hoffmann und Campe publishing house. After the war she resumed her work as an independent photojournalist. She used her photographs to document the transformation of the German capital: from the ruins of a devastated Berlin after 1945 to the renewed flourishing of urban life in the West Berlin of the 1950s. She also created numerous portraits of artists. In 1947 she married the painter Hans Thiemann, whom she knew from their time at the Bauhaus. When the couple moved to Hamburg in 1960, Elsa Thiemann stopped working as a professional photographer and began documenting the work of her husband. After his death in 1977, she managed his estate while also tending to her own photo archive. Elsa Thiemann died in Hamburg on 15 November 1981.

Text from the Bauhaus-Archiv website

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)
Lampenputzer, Berlin
1950s
Modern print
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)
Berlin Kinder am U-Bahneingang in Neukölln (Berlin children at the subway entrance in Neukölln)
1950s
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Elsa Thiemann (German born Poland, 1910-1981)
Berlin die grosse Treppe im Freibad Wannsee (Berlin, the large staircase in the Wannsee open-air swimming pool)
1950s
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

Museum für Fotografie
Jebensstraße 2, 10623 Berlin

Opening hours:
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Thu 11.00am – 8.00pm
Fri 11.00am – 7.00pm
Sat 11.00am – 7.00pm
Sun 11.00am – 7.00pm

Museum für Fotografie website

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Exhibition: ‘Ruth Asawa: Retrospective’ at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Exhibition dates: 9th March – 13th September, 2026

Curators: Janet Bishop, Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator, SFMOMA, and Cara Manes, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, in collaboration with Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, Curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.363, Freestanding Basket)
c. 1948
Copper wire
4 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. (11.4 x 19.1 x 19.7cm)
Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina. Black Mountain College Collection
Museum purchase with funds provided by 2010 Collectors’ Circle with additional funds provided by Frances Myers
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo courtesy Christie’s

I have always admired Ruth Asawa’s work.

There are some beautiful photographs of her wire sculptures on display in various exhibitions; of Asawa in her home with her work. Imagine living in such a home surrounded by your creations, continuous form within a form within the home as her studio. A nest of creativity, comfort and production.

What beauty and natural energy emanates from the soul of this work, work which contains ideas of transparency, continuity, and space. For the artist a way of growing and being as one with the energy of the world.

“Everything is connected, continuous.”

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special.”

“I was interested in wire because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It’s still transparent. I realised that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere.”

“My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.”

Ruth Asawa

“What’s exceptional about Asawa’s practice is the multiplicity of her artistic pursuits and the marvellous ability to turn the simplest things into subjects of lifelong creative contemplation. The exhibition aims to offer multiple points of entry into her work, reflecting what Asawa described as the ‘total act’ of artmaking.”

Cara Manes, curator of Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective

Across mediums and all stages of her practice, Asawa explored continuity, transparency, and the interchangeability of seemingly contradictory concepts like figure and ground, and abstraction and representation. She first articulated these core ideas at Black Mountain College (BMC), a multidisciplinary school with a sensory- and materials-based curriculum that she attended in 1946-49. There, Asawa took courses in mathematics, philosophy, music, and dance. She studied art under Josef Albers, among others, from whom she learned “how to see,” as she later put it.

Asawa’s early drawings, paintings, and wire works in this section took inspiration from natural forms and mathematical patterns, among other sources. A formative trip to Mexico in 1947 introduced Asawa to wire baskets and weaving techniques, which was a major turning point in her own work. By the time she left BMC in 1949, she had made an important discovery. “I continued one basket into a closed form and slowly, while learning to control the medium, began to realize the exciting potential in this way of making sculpture.”

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (BMC.52, Dancers)
c. 1948-49
Oil on paper
48.3 x 30.5cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (BMC.58, Meander – Curved Lines)
c. 1948
Ink on paper
41.9 x 55.9cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.691, Wall-Mounted Paperfold with Horizontal Stripes)
1951
Ink on paper
176.5 x 73.7 x 5.7cm
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gift of the Cuneo Family
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

In the early 1950s Asawa took classes in dance, commercial design, lettering, screenprinting, and painting at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). In these years her work continued to gain local and national attention through exhibitions at the San Francisco and New York showrooms of the interior design company Laverne Originals, and in publications including Vogue.

During this period Asawa made a range of designs for commercial work, including plastic panels based on her paperfolds and wallpaper and textile patterns incorporating logarithmic spiral forms, the Black Mountain College (BMC) laundry stamp, and the footprints of her young children. Although Laverne Originals invited Asawa to mass-produce her looped-wire baskets as home decor, she declined. She explained: “I am interested in producing to sell, but the more I work the more ideas I get and I want to experiment, but experimenting is not producing, since there are always many flops.”

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.427, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form)
1953
Brass wire
18 x 28 x 28 in. (45.7 x 71.1 x 71.1 cm)
Collection Don Kaul and Barbara Bluhm-Kaul, Chicago
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: Maris Hutchinson, courtesy David Zwirner

“These sculptures are made of a continuous wire … enclosing volumes transparently … and producing forms within forms. … The wire must be continuous and the hollow shapes can only be shapes that grow this way.”

~ Ruth Asawa

In 1949 Asawa moved to San Francisco, which became her permanent home. Following California’s repeal of laws prohibiting interracial marriage, she married architect and fellow Black Mountain alumnus, Albert Lanier, and together they started a family. In tandem Asawa began building her art career, dedicating herself full-time to experiments with form building both in space with her looped-wire sculptures and on a flat plane in drawings and prints.

Asawa’s unyielding search for new possibilities within her chosen processes resulted in her signature sculptural motif: a “continuous form within a form,” which she described as “a shape that was inside and outside at the same time.” In a single lobe, a sequence of spheres encloses one another, creating one uninterrupted surface. Asawa would continue to elaborate on this motif for decades to come, foregrounding continuity as a through line for her work. “You can show inside and outside, and inside and outside are connected,” she said. “Everything is connected, continuous.”

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.797, Hanging Two-Lobed, Three-Layered Continuous Form within a Form)
c. 1954
Steel wire
49.5 x 38.7 x 38.7cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.270, Hanging Six-Lobed, Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with Spheres in the First and Second Lobes)
1955, refabricated 1957-58
Brass and steel wire
162.2 x 37.9 x 37.9cm
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gift of Howard Lipman
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (AB.029, Continuous Form Within a Form)
1956
Acrylic on Masonite
83.8 x 109.2cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (ZP.16B, Twelve Looped-Wire Sculptural Forms)
mid- to late 1950s
Screentone on mat board
25.4 x 61cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: James Paonessa

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.433, Hanging Nine Open Hyperbolic Shapes Joined Laterally)
c. 1958
Copper wire
193 x 38.1 x 38.1cm
William Roth Estate
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: Laurence Cuneo

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.039, Hanging Five Spiraling Columns of Open Windows)
c. 1959-1960
Monel wire
213.4 x 61 x 61cm
de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Gift of the artist
Artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., Courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: Laurence Cuneo

Asawa’s famous quote, “My home was and is my studio,” encapsulates her philosophy of seamlessly integrating family life and artistic creation, where her San Francisco home became a living, breathing art space filled with family, projects, and her iconic hanging wire sculptures. Taking inspiration from this motif, this gallery brings together works in different mediums from across the arc of Asawa’s career, alongside works by her lifelong friends, and pays testament to her boundless practice.

The heart of the Asawa-Lanier Noe Valley house was its cathedral-like main living space, which boasted south-facing windows and a double-height ceiling measuring over five meters tall. The space was filled with objects reflective of the constant creative activity the artist encouraged in her children and guests to the home. Its walls featured her own work along with art by friends including Josef Albers, among others. Its shelves displayed pots by Marguerite Wildenhain as well as art books. The most distinguishing feature of her living room was the spectacular array of Asawa’s wire sculptures suspended from the open overhead beams.

Both within and outside her home and studio, Asawa never stopped working: She sketched and drew her surroundings, coiled or bundled wire in preparation for the next sculpture, folded paper for origami, and welcomed other artists, educators, and advocates for continued collaborations.

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.046a-d, Hanging Group of Four, Two-Lobed Forms)
1961
Copper and brass wire
(a): 152.4 x 43.2 x 17.8cm
(b): 53.3 x 30.5 x 30.5cm
(c): 81.3 x 33 x 33cm
(d): 104.1 x 40.6 x 40.6cm
Collection of Diana Nelson and John Atwater
Promised gift to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: Laurence Cuneo

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.184, Hanging Tied-Wire, Single-Stem, Multi-Branched Form Based on Nature)
c. 1962
Galvanized steel wire
76.2 x 101.6 x 101.6cm
Collection of Diana Nelson and John Atwater
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Poppy (TAM.1479)
1965
Lithograph
76.4 x 52.2cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Kleiner, Bell & Co
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: © 2015 MoMA, NY

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (S.451, Wall-Mounted Tied-Wire, Open-Center, Six-Branched Form Based on Nature)
c. 1965
Brass and copper wire
63.5 x 73.7 x 19.1cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: Dan Bradica, courtesy David Zwirner

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (SD.017, Tied-Wire Sculpture Drawing with Open Pentagon in Center)
1980s to mid-1990s
Ink on paper
46.4 x 66cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: James Paonessa

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Untitled (WC.090, Voodoo Lily)
1990
Ink and watercolour on paper
63.5 x 48.26cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Over the course of her career, Asawa tirelessly returned to depicting plants and flowers, tracing the shapes of irises, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and other flora from her garden in sketchbooks and works on paper. For Asawa, drawing from life was more than simple observation; it became a value and mode of engaging with the world and present moment. “Life draws,” she once wrote, expressing how the events and objects around her defined her work.

In 1985 Asawa was diagnosed with lupus and for nearly a year her physical capacity was significantly reduced, but her creative spirit remained undiminished. In the last decades of her career, she concentrated her creative output on botanical drawings, some of which are gathered in this section. These intimate works, at times extremely realistic, at others abstract, often began with a gesture of generosity: gifts of plants from the artist’s friends and family, after whom many works are titled – such as Albert’s Bouquet from the Garden (1999) or Valentine Bouquet from Adam (1991), referring to her son who often tended his parents’ flowering plants during their later years. Through the daily routine of recording the natural world around her, Asawa documented the extended community she shared it with, as well as the passage of time.

Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013)
Valentine Bouquet from Adam (PF.555)
1991
Ink on paper
31.8 x 58.4cm
Private collection
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner
Photo: James Paonessa

Unfolding across ten sections that span the arc of a six decade-long career, this exhibition traces the full breadth and depth of the innovative practice of an iconic artist. Ruth Aiko Asawa (b. 1926, Norwalk, California, USA; d. 2013, San Francisco, USA) integrated her creative work with all aspects of her life as an artist, educator and arts advocate. This interconnectedness is illuminated in photographs and ephemera presented alongside and in response to the works featured here, from the suspended looped-wire sculptures for which she is best known to nature-inspired tied-wire pieces, clay and bronze casts, paperfolds, paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and prints. Challenging distinctions between abstraction and representation, figure and ground, and negative and positive space, her work invites us to contemplate how disparate elements interact in a composition, which in turn engages with its surroundings.

Asawa was the fourth of seven children of Japanese immigrant farmers. During World War II, she and her family were forcibly incarcerated by the United States government because of their Japanese ancestry. In 1946, after being denied an art teaching degree because of anti Japanese prejudice, she enrolled at the progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In the school’s democratic environment, she forged a creative path grounded in experimentation and an ethos of hard, continuous work. From her time at Black Mountain through the end of her life in San Francisco, where she moved in 1949, Asawa situated her artistic practice within set parameters to investigate ideas of transparency, continuity, and space. In the 1960s, she also expanded her life’s work to directly engage her community through public commissions, arts education, and civic advocacy.

Taking its cue from the artist’s multifaceted work, this retrospective charts Asawa’s career and legacy, highlighting her ceaseless experimentation with material and form evident in her radical innovations.

Ruth Asawa: Retrospective is an exhibition partnership between the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA). This presentation was developed in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

The exhibition is co-curated by Janet Bishop, Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator, SFMOMA, and Cara Manes, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, in collaboration with Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, Curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Text from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao website

Installation view of the exhibition 'Ruth Asawa: Retrospective' at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, March - September, 2026

Installation views of the exhibition Ruth Asawa: Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, March – September, 2026

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao proudly presents Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, an ambitious exhibition devoted to an iconic artist, Ruth Aiko Asawa (born Norwalk, California, 1926 ; died San Francisco, California, 2013) in the year that would have been her 100th birthday.

Asawa was one of the most uniquely gifted and productive artists to emerge in the postwar era in the United States. While the appreciation of her work has grown exponentially in the last decade, this international retrospective is the first major museum exhibition to fully consider every aspect of the artist’s exquisite, varied, and groundbreaking practice.

Unfolding across ten sections that span the arc of a six-decade-long career, this exhibition traces the full breadth and depth of the innovative practice of Ruth Asawa, who integrated her creative work with all aspects of her life as an artist, educator and arts advocate. This interconnectedness is illuminated in photographs and ephemera presented alongside and in response to the works featured in this exhibition, from the suspended looped-wire sculptures for which she is best known to nature-inspired tied-wire pieces, clay and bronze casts, paperfolds, paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and prints.

Challenging distinctions between abstraction and representation, figure and ground, and negative and positive space, her work invites us to contemplate how disparate elements interact in a composition, which in turn engages with its surroundings.

Asawa was the fourth of seven children of Japanese immigrant farmers. During World War II, she and her family were forcibly incarcerated by the United States government because of their Japanese ancestry. In 1946, after being denied an art teaching degree because of anti-Japanese prejudice, she enrolled at the progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In the school’s democratic environment, she forged a creative path grounded in experimentation and an ethos of hard work. From her time at Black Mountain through the end of her life in San Francisco , where she moved in 1949, Asawa situated her artistic practice within set parameters to investigate ideas of transparency, continuity, and space. In the 1960s, she also expanded her life’s work to directly engage her community through public commissions, arts education, and civic advocacy.

Ruth Asawa: Retrospective is an exhibition partnership between the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA). This presentation was developed in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Following its presentation at SFMOMA, MoMA, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the exhibition will then travel to Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland. International exhibition tour supported by The Henry Luce Foundation.

Press release continued below…

Installation views of the exhibition Ruth Asawa: Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, March – September, 2026

Exhibition overview

“How To See”: Black Mountain College, 1940s

Across mediums and all stages of her practice, Ruth Asawa explored continuity, transparency, and the interchangeability of seemingly contradictory concepts like figure and ground, and abstraction and representation. She first articulated these core ideas at Black Mountain College (BMC), a multidisciplinary school with a sensory – and materials – based curriculum that she attended in 1946-49. There, Asawa took courses in mathematics, philosophy, music, and dance. She studied art under Josef Albers, among others, from whom she learned “how to see,” as she later put it.

Untitled (BMC.52, Dancers), c. 1948-49, features abstract dancing figures inspired by dance classes that Asawa took from Merce Cunningham and with Elizabeth Schmitt Jennerjahn in her final year at BMC. The work is composed of layered rounded forms on a yellow ground, and it was a precursor to the artist’s wire sculptures of the 1950s. Moreover, a formative trip to Mexico in 1947 introduced Asawa to wire baskets and weaving techniques, which was a major turning point in her own work. By the time she left BMC in 1949, she had made an important discovery: “I continued one basket into a closed form and slowly, while learning to control the medium, began to realise the exciting potential in this way of making sculpture.”

Commercial Designs, early 1950s

In the early 1950s Ruth Asawa took classes in dance, commercial design, lettering, screenprinting, and painting at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). In these years her work continued to gain local and national attention through exhibitions at the San Francisco and New York showrooms of the interior design company Laverne Originals, and in publications including Vogue. During this period Asawa made a range of designs for commercial work, including plastic panels based on her paperfolds and wallpaper and textile patterns incorporating logarithmic spiral forms, the Black Mountain College (BMC) laundry stamp, and the footprints of her young children. Although Laverne Originals invited Asawa to mass produce her looped-wire baskets as home decor, she declined. She explained: “I am interested in producing to sell, but the more I work the more ideas I get and I want to experiment, but experimenting is not producing, since there are always many flops.”

“Everything is connected”: Forms within Forms, 1950s

~ Ruth Asawa

In 1949 Ruth Asawa moved to San Francisco, which became her permanent home. Following California’s repeal of laws prohibiting interracial marriage, she married architect and fellow Black Mountain alumnus, Albert Lanier, and together they started a family. In tandem Asawa began building her art career, dedicating herself full-time to experiments with form building both in space with her looped-wire sculptures and on a flat plane in drawings and prints.

Asawa’s unyielding search for new possibilities within her chosen processes resulted in her signature sculptural motif: a “continuous form within a form,” which she described as “a shape that was inside and outside at the same time.” In a single lobe, a sequence of spheres encloses one another, creating one uninterrupted surface. Among those examples featured in this section include Untitled (S.427, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form), 1953; and Untitled (S.797, Hanging Two-Lobed, Three-Layered Continuous Form within a Form), c. 1954. Asawa continued to elaborate on this motif for decades to come, foregrounding continuity as a thorough line for her work. “You can show inside and outside, and inside and outside are connected,” she said. “Everything is connected, continuous.”

“Vocabulary of My Sculpture”

“The work is one which dictates a way of growing and the more one learns about this way of growing the more possibilities are opened up for the creating of sculpture peculiar to the process.”

~ Ruth Asawa

The works on view in this section offer a partial inventory of the vast array of sculptural forms Ruth Asawa invented throughout the 1950s using industrially sourced, wire that she looped by hand – what she described in 1955 as the “vocabulary of my sculpture.” These forms by turns layer, nest, interlock, ruffle, and cascade, creating continuous surfaces that delineate volume while remaining porous to surrounding space. Though their composite structures are symmetrical and balanced, the viewer’s experience of their shapes can change depending on the vantage point and proximity to other works.

Asawa used her looped-wire technique to make “sculpture that would itself have a form and volume, whose silhouette would also have volume, and sculptures whose shadow would have volume.” Most of the works in this section were chosen by Asawa to be exhibited in a sequence of solo shows at Peridot Gallery in New York in the 1950s, which introduced her art to a broader audience. Considered together, they shed light on the iterative nature of the artist’s practice. Among those works featured is Untitled (S.270, Hanging Six-Lobed, Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with Spheres in the First and Second Lobes), 1955, re-fabricated in 1957-58, which contains multiple connected lobes that form long sculptural silhouettes while the interior elements, such as the scones or spheres, create overlapping layers.

The Tamarind Prints, 1965

The Tamarind Lithography Workshop was founded by June Wayne in Los Angeles in 1960 and vastly expanded the possibilities of fine art lithography in the United States. At the suggestion of her former teacher Josef Albers, who had previously printed there himself, Asawa was invited to do a residency for two months in 1965. During her short time there, she worked closely with seven printers to produce fifty-four radically experimental prints.

Asawa’s unique prints featured family members, flowers, plane trees, and chairs, as well as abstractions, of which some are on view in this section, including Poppy (TAM.1479), 1965, a virtuoso depiction of California’s delicate state flower. While never again focusing as intensively on printmaking as she did during her time at Tamarind, Asawa remained convinced of the merits of the medium, resisting “the myth that the crafts and printmaking are less important than painting and sculpture. A good piece is important regardless of category.”

Nature, Tied Wire and Later Sculpture, 1960s-1990s

“Nature is my teacher, and I have used materials that are a product of our twentieth century to study her growth patterns.”

~ Ruth Asawa

In 1962 a gift of a dried desert plant from Death Valley given to Ruth Asawa inspired her to pursue a new direction in her sculpture. Drawing the plant, she found “its intricacy … made it impossible,” and instead turned to wire, working with bundles and spools that she manipulated into complex branches and other botanical forms, as seen in Untitled (S.184, Hanging Tied-Wire, Single-Stem, Multi-Branched Form Based on Nature), c. 1962. Asawa went on to make “tied-wire” sculptures over the course of the decade and beyond. As she described, these works “take an impersonal material like wire, which is very hard, and then make it into a gentle thing that’s natural looking so that you can take an abstract piece of wire and turn it into a plant. And I like the transition from hard to soft.”

Asawa’s tied-wire works often began with a floral, starlike, or geometric centre, as seen in Untitled (S.451, Wall-Mounted Tied-Wire, Open-Center, Six-Branched Form Based on Nature), c. 1965. As she worked, and the form grew progressively outward, she both responded to the properties of her medium in following “what the wire dictates” and mirrored patterns in the natural world. Her hanging and wall-mounted sculpture also reinvigorated her drawing, which like her works in wire explored new possibilities in geometric designs, airy blooms, and branching tree-like patterns, as seen in Untitled (SD.017, Tied-Wire Sculpture Drawing with Open Pentagon in Center), 1980s to mid-1990s.

Throughout the 1970s and beyond, Asawa continued “to explore the limits of materials, growth, and form by making sculpture with wire.” As she created new variations of looped- and tied-wire compositions, some closed and some open, some suspended from above and others wall-mounted, she also furthered her material exploration of resin and experimented with coloured glass.

Public Art and Public Commissions, 1960s-1990s

In 1968 Ruth Asawa began advocating for the role of art in society through her tenures on the San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She also expanded her art practice into San Francisco’s civic life through public artworks and commissions “to make a sculpture that could be enjoyed by everyone.” These works, often collaborative in nature, became places where communities could gather for moments of remembrance and celebration. This section explores Asawa’s expanded engagement with her community through art, arts education and civic advocacy, drawing on artwork, video, photographs, archival documentation and other ephemera.

Her first outdoor commission was the bronze fountain Andrea (1968) in San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square. Responding to the waterfront location, she delivered a sculpture of two mermaids, one of whom holds an infant, surrounded by frogs and turtles.

Other large-scale works include her Origami Fountains (1975-76) at San Francisco’s Nihonmachi Pedestrian Mall, which explore her long interest in origami and paper folding. In 1994, Asawa debuted her monumental Japanese American Internment Memorial, commissioned by the City of San José. Created in collaboration with her artist-son Paul Lanier and artist Nancy Thompson, this sculpture more directly addressed personal and shared stories of the unlawful incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War II.

“Life Draws”: From the Garden, 1980s-2000s

Over the course of her career, Ruth Asawa tirelessly returned to depicting plants and flowers, tracing the shapes of irises, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and other flora from her garden in sketchbooks and works on paper. For Asawa, drawing from life was more than simple observation; it became a value and mode of engaging with the world and present moment. “Life draws,” she once wrote, expressing how the events and objects around her defined her work.

In 1985 Asawa was diagnosed with lupus and for nearly a year her physical capacity was significantly reduced, but her creative spirit remained undiminished. In the last decades of her career, she concentrated her creative output on botanical drawings, some of which are gathered in this section. These intimate works, at times extremely realistic, at others abstract, often began with a gesture of generosity: gifts of plants from the artist’s friends and family, after whom many works are titled – such as Valentine Bouquet from Adam, 1991, referring to her son who often tended his parents’ flowering plants during their later years. Through the daily routine of recording the natural world around her, Asawa documented the extended community she shared it with, as well as the passage of time.

Noe Valley, 1960s-2000s

By 1960, Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, and their six children – Xavier, Aiko, Hudson, Adam, Addie, and Paul – had outgrown three San Francisco residences. Later that year she and Lanier purchased a large house in Noe Valley. The house from 1908 was designed by Walter Ratcliff and Alfred Jacobs in the spirit of Bernard Maybeck, the legendary professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who fuelled the region’s Arts and Crafts movement at the turn of the twentieth century. The cedar-shingled exterior blended with its site, while a deck off the kitchen made for a fluid relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces.

Overall, the design of the house evoked a casual ease of living. Lanier spent a year renovating – including excavating to create a studio for Asawa and additional bedrooms – before the family moved in during the fall of 1961. Asawa designed monumental new front doors, on view in this section, and the family went on to build walkways from cobblestones scavenged from San Francisco beaches, planting beds for flowers, herbs, and vegetables that would prove to be an enduring source of inspiration for her drawings. Additionally, the artist created hundreds of unique face casts of family, friends, and colleagues between 1966 and 2000, some of which are on view here, resulting in a veritable index of the comings and goings at the Noe Valley house.

“My Home was and is My Studio”

Ruth Asawa’s famous quote, “My home was and is my studio,” encapsulates her philosophy of seamlessly integrating family life and artistic creation, where her San Francisco home became a living, breathing art space filled with family, projects, and her iconic hanging wire sculptures. Taking inspiration from this motif, this gallery brings together works in different mediums from across the arc of Asawa’s career, alongside works by her lifelong friends, and pays testament to her boundless practice.

The heart of the Asawa-Lanier Noe Valley house was its cathedral-like main living space, which boasted south-facing windows and a double-height ceiling measuring more than five meters tall. The space was filled with objects reflective of the constant creative activity the artist encouraged in her children and guests to the home. Its walls featured her own work along with art by friends including Josef Albers, among others. Its shelves displayed pots by Marguerite Wildenhain as well as art books. The most distinguishing feature of her living room was the spectacular array of Asawa’s wire sculptures suspended from the open overhead beams. Both within and outside her home and studio, Asawa never stopped working: She sketched and drew her surroundings, coiled or bundled wire in preparation for the next sculpture, folded paper for origami, and welcomed other artists, educators, and advocates for continued collaborations.

Catalogue

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by exhibition curators Janet Bishop, Cara Manes, and Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, as well as a chronology by Dominika Tylcz, all shedding light on Ruth Asawa’s six-decade career, her unyielding search for new possibilities, and her unique artistic vocabulary.

Press release from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Holding a form-within-a-form sculpture
1951
Gelatin silver print
Photo © 2026 Imogen Cunningham Trust / http://www.ImogenCunningham.com
Artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Nat Farbman (American born Poland, 1907-1988)
Artist Ruth Asawa making wire sculptures, California, United States
November 1954
Image: Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Artwork: © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Nat Farbman immigrated to United States 1911, was a photographer for LIFE magazine from 1946 to 1961.

Nat Farbman (American born Poland, 1907-1988)
Portrait of Japanese American artist sculptor Ruth Asawa as she sketches a design
1954
Image: Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Artwork: © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Ruth Asawa
1957
Photo © 2026 Imogen Cunningham Trust / http://www.ImogenCunningham.com
Artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Ruth Asawa in Her Dining Room with Tied-Wire Sculptures
1963
Gelatin silver print
Photo © 2026 Imogen Cunningham Trust / http://www.ImogenCunningham.com
Artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Joan Pearson Watkins (American, 1924-2013)
Ruth Asawa with her children Addie and Paul in front of Doors (S.528, Carved Redwood Doors for Ruth Asawa’s Home), at her home in San Francisco
c. 1965
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Joan Pearson Watkins (also known as Joan Jockwig Pearson Watkins) was an American ceramist, museum curator, and photographer.

Joan Pearson Watkins’ archival photography serves as a vital historical record of the mid-20th century art scene, capturing intimate moments of iconic American artists in their creative spaces. Rather than staging rigid portraits, her camera documented the organic, daily environments where famous mid-century modernism was actively being built.

Her most famous body of photographic work documents the iconic Japanese-American sculptor Ruth Asawa. Watkins captured crucial archival images of Asawa’s life and environment including photos showing how Asawa lived alongside her intricate, hanging looped-wire sculptures, serving as an invaluable visual record for modern museum retrospectives

Rondal Partridge (American, 1917-2015)
Living room of Ruth Asawa’s home in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighbourhood
1969
Photo © 2026 Rondal Partridge Archives
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Rondal Partridge (September 4, 1917 – June 19, 2015) was an American photographer. After working as an assistant to well-known photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams in his youth, he went on to a long career as a photographer and filmmaker. …

Career as a photographer

In 1940, he got a job with a New Deal agency called the National Youth Administration, documenting the problems faced by young people in the final years of the Great Depression.

In contrast to Adams, whose work focused on the beauty of the natural landscape, Partridge documented the human built infrastructure of Yosemite, as well as changes to the built environment of the San Francisco Bay Area. An example of such work is his mid 1960s photograph Pave It and Paint It Green. The photo shows iconic Yosemite peak Half Dome in the background, while the foreground consists of a parking lot filled with cars. In the photo, “the distinction between city and wilderness has disappeared”. Partridge also made a documentary film of the same name, which was shown on television. Adams, who did not appreciate irony or social commentary in photography, disapproved of Partridge’s 1960s work in Yosemite, although he later called Partridge a “fine photographer” in his autobiography.

Partridge has taken portraits of ordinary working people, as well as many notable people including Odetta, Ruth Asawa, Judy Dater, Peter Scott Lewis, John Carl Warnecke, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and Diego Rivera as well as his mother, Imogen Cunningham.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Laurence Cuneo (American)
Ruth Asawa (second from left) with visitors to her exhibition Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective View, San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA)
1973
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Laurence Cuneo (American)
Ruth Asawa’s Untitled (S.540, Hanging Seven-Lobed, Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form) hanging in front of the artist’s Wall of Masks (LC.012) on the exterior of her home in San Francisco
c. 1973
Artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

By 1960, Asawa, Albert Lanier, and their six children – Xavier, Aiko, Hudson, Adam, Addie, and Paul – had outgrown three San Francisco residences. Later that year she and Lanier purchased a large house in Noe Valley. Lanier spent a year renovating – including excavating to create a studio for Asawa and additional bedrooms – before the family moved in during the fall of 1961.

Asawa designed monumental new front doors, on view in this section and titled Doors (S.528, Carved Redwood Doors for Ruth Asawa’s Home), 1961, which were featured prominently in her new home. She used a durable wood native to the West Coast and drew an allover pattern of interlocking waves that joined across the two doors when closed. Her older children also helped her to carve and finish the surface, using mallets and chisels to carve shallow, raised patterns across both sides of the doors, and smoothing the surface with a blowtorch and wire brushes. The family went on to build walkways from cobblestones scavenged from San Francisco beaches, planting beds for flowers, herbs, and vegetables that would prove to be an enduring source of inspiration for Asawa’s drawings.

Additionally, the artist created hundreds of unique face casts of family, friends, and colleagues between 1966 and 2000, some of which are on view in this section as well, resulting in a veritable index of the comings and goings at the Noe Valley house.

Laurence Cuneo (American)
Ruth Asawa and her granddaughter with Japanese American Internment Memorial (PC.011)
1990-1994
Commissioned by the City of San José; 300 South First Street, San José
© 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Abandoibarra Etorb., 2, Abando,
48009 Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 7pm

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao website

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Exhibition: ‘Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan’ at Princeton University Art Museum

Exhibition dates: 19th April – 7th September, 2026

Curator: Brendan Fay

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Hilltop view of red van and camera on tripod
1964
35 mm slide
© Trustees of Princeton University. Courtesy the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum

It’s such a pity when a gallery or museum spends an inordinate amount of time, energy and money to put on an exhibition and then doesn’t do all it can to promote the exhibition by providing media and installation photographs.

As I observed to my friend Colin Vickery on the Art Blart Facebook page, I can’t really comment on the exhibition as there were so few media images and one installation photo that I really don’t have much to go on. I had to scrounge around just to get enough to make up this post

Of course each of the photographers I admire in their own right but together … that would be incredible to see. One can only imagine the energy bouncing between the images of three masters of photography.

Suffice to say I have ordered the catalogue even though it’s $110 in Australia on Amazon.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Princeton University Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Soon, the grand sweep of the exhibition becomes clear as it maps a shared strategy among this trio in the formation of a network of institutions, criticism, publishing, museum engagement, and, perhaps most crucially, an educational infrastructure that would embed photography as an academic and cultural participant. As a premise, it is both startling and self-evident and vividly demonstrates the coordination of parts among the Museum of Modern Art, Aperture, the George Eastman Museum, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. Indeed, Photography as a Way of Life is as much about the careers of each photographer and their advancement as they chaperoned the medium. The exhibition does not seem a matter of cunning and opportunism, as it might be perceived, but of passion and commitment. …

To its credit, the exhibition includes a second chapter in the chronicle. By 1970, a new generation of photographers who had studied at RISD, Rochester Institute of Technology and the newly formed Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, in the spirit of the times, departed from the received wisdom of the photograph as a formalist device. From the tutelage of Callahan and Siskind, especially, came an assertion of the photograph not as an object of wistful contemplation but one of cultural rhetoric. It was not a delicate mimetic device but a public construction, a surface and a process. Graduates of this school of thought and practice became a pedagogical diaspora that propagated photographic thinking as we know it today.”

Stephen Frailey. “Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan,” on The Brooklyn Rail website July/August 2026 [Online] Cited 12/08/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Eleanor' about 1947

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
c. 1947
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan and courtesy Pace Gallery

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Grasses in Snow
Detroit, 1943
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan and courtesy Pace Gallery

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor, Chicago
1952
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan. Courtesy Pace Gallery

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Devil’s Slide, San Mateo County, California, October 12, 1947
1947
Gelatin silver print
© Trustees of Princeton University

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Jan Davis, vicinity of Pescadero, California, June 30 1951
1951
Gelatin silver print
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 37
1953
Gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum
Gift of Robert A. Wayne, Class of 1960
© Aaron Siskind/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Photography as a Way of Life examines the careers of Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan – influential photographers, teachers, and thinkers in the United States in the mid-twentieth century – and traces their impact on the field of photography. Training and inspiring makers through courses, workshops, exhibitions, magazines, and photobooks, these artists built a devoted audience for their work while shaping the aspirations of their era.

Amid exploding markets for Kodak’s snapshots and Magnum’s decisive moments, White, Siskind, and Callahan shared inclinations toward abstraction and toward deeply personal photographs. Seeking to carve out a new role and status for art photography, just as a new crop of photography programs were emerging within higher education, they established themselves as icons among the first generation of college-level photography teachers.

Drawing on the rich photography holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive, this exhibition brings together iconic and previously unpublished colour and black-and-white prints, rarely seen slides, and an array of published and archival materials that illuminate a vision of making a living and shaping a life through photography.

Text from the Princeton University Art Museum website

Installation view of the exhibition Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan at the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, 2026
Photo: Joseph Hu

“In bringing their works together in dialogue, [Brendan] Fay illustrates how White, Siskind, Callahan – each in his own way and as a spiritual collective – not only elevated photography into a way of making a comfortable living, but as a manifesto for how to be in the world. As fellow travelers, they would shape their medium into a discipline defined by an intentional and introspective way of seeing, that is, one that has a worldview, a morality. …

Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan shared a propensity for abstraction, which set their vision apart from the post–World War II years when documentary photography, Kodak’s snapshots, and Magnum’s “decisive moments” dominated the market. They were steadfast in their artistic right to ambiguity and improvisation. They rejected reproducibility, resisted interpretation. They carried on the Romantic tradition of superimposing one’s emotional landscape onto natural terrain. They saw the ethereal in urban settings. They associated themselves with the Beat poets and Abstract Expressionists. White, in particular, carved out a space for so-called creative photography as the founding editor of this magazine and championed the works of Callahan and Siskind in its pages. (White co-founded Aperture in 1952 and was one of the magazine’s longtime editors. His archives are held by the Princeton University Art Museum.)”

Michael Londres. “How Three Friends Turned Photography into a Way of Life,” on the Aperture website, July 31, 2026 [Online] Cited 13/08/2026

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Layout mock-up for the first issue of Aperture
1952
Graphite drawings, text, and paper
Museum purchase, Minor White Archive Fund
© Trustees of Princeton University
Photo: Joseph Hu

Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Martha’s Vineyard IIIB
1954
Gelatin silver print
© the artist and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

The Princeton University Art Museum announces Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan, an exhibition exploring the intertwined careers of three of the most influential photographers and teachers in mid-twentieth-century America. On view in Princeton from April 19 through September 7, 2026, and then traveling, the exhibition draws on the rich photography holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive to bring together iconic and previously unpublished colour and black-and-white prints, rarely seen slides, and an array of published and archival materials that illuminate a vision of making a living and shaping a life through photography.

“Photography as a Way of Life highlights a pivotal historical moment when photography emerged as a serious academic discipline and a viable artistic profession, and thus as a way of being and living,” said James Steward, Nancy A. Nasher-David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, Director of the Princeton University Art Museum. “White, Siskind, and Callahan did more than make extraordinary photographs: They built institutions, communities, and ideas that continue to shape how photography is taught and valued today.”

Tracing the decades after World War II, Photography as a Way of Life explores how Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan redefined photography as both an artistic practice and a professional vocation. Coming to the medium from distinct backgrounds and visual traditions, these three artists converged around shared commitments to abstraction, deeply personal expression, and the belief that photography could sustain a life’s work.

The exhibition takes its title from a recurring phrase in Minor White’s diaries and letters, in which he described photography as a “way of life.” For White, the phrase encompassed artistic ambition, pedagogy, and personal growth – a vision he advanced as a founding editor of Aperture, the influential photography magazine launched in 1952. Siskind and Callahan were central figures in White’s vision for the field, with their work prominently featured in Aperture alongside broader discussions of photographic education and postwar art photography.

“Princeton University holds a central place in the academic study of photography, with a proud legacy of stewardship and landmark scholarly exhibitions,” said Brendan Fay, exhibition curator. “The Minor White Archive is one of the cornerstones of that legacy, and it’s an honour to present an exhibition that builds on that strength during the new Museum’s inaugural year.”

From the 1940s through the 1970s, amid booming markets for Kodak snapshots and photojournalism, photography began to take root within higher education. White, Siskind, and Callahan were among the first generation of college-level photography teachers, developing models of photographic education during the GI Bill era that quickly spread across colleges and universities in the United States. While achieving critical success through books, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions, these artists also helped catalyze the creation of academic programs, publishing ventures, and professional societies that defined the postwar photographic landscape.

Highlights of the exhibition include a reconstruction of White’s Slow Dance, a projected sequence of color slides performed for live audiences in the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as materials from magazines and journals ranging from Popular Photography and Apertureto poetry publications and The Black Photographers Annual. The exhibition also traces the expansive networks shaped by these photographers, featuring works by more than forty additional artists, from Alfred Stieglitz and Dorothea Lange to Anthony Barboza and Donna-Lee Phillips.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue copublished by the Museum and Princeton University Press. While on view in Princeton, the exhibition will inspire a number of public programs, including a two-day symposium beginning April 30, a film series, and a talk by curator Brendan Fay on April 18. Attendees to the curatorial talk will have the opportunity to preview the exhibition alongside Museum members prior to the exhibition’s public opening the following day. Visit the exhibition website for a full list of related programming.

Photography as a Way of Life is curated by Brendan Fay, associate professor of art history in the School of Art & Design at Eastern Michigan University and is organized and presented by the Princeton University Art Museum. Following its debut at Princeton, the exhibition will travel through 2028, with presentations at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Exhibition credits

Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan is made possible by leadership support from Jim McKinney and the late Valerie McKinney, with generous support from Anne Robinson Woods and Sandy and Robin Stuart.

Additional support is provided by Black Dog Private Foundation; the Curtis W. McGraw Foundation; the Melanie and John Clarke Exhibition Fund; the Peter C. Bunnell Photography Fund; Princeton University’s Department of Art & Archaeology, Effron Center for the Study of America, and Humanities Council; Kathryn Richardson and family; and contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund.

The accompanying publication is made possible in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund; the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University; Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund; and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

Press release from Princeton University Art Museum

Ming Smith (American, b. 1951)
Oopdeedoo, Brooklyn, NY, from the series Coney Island
1976
Gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
© Ming Smith
Photo: Emile Askey

Donna-Lee Phillips (American, b. 1941)
Fragments from a Visual Journal
1977
Gelatin silver print
Black Dog Collection
© Hal Fischer

'Photography As A Way Of Life' book cover

Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan carved out a new role for photographers and their art in the decades after World War Two. Photography as a Way of Life traces how these influential teachers and theorists reimagined the medium as a livelihood and a life’s work.

Together with growing markets for snapshots and photojournalism, the postwar years saw the emergence of photography as an established field of study in higher education. In this beautifully produced book, Brendan Fay takes readers from the late 1940s through the 1970s to explore how White, Siskind, and Callahan transformed the ways photography was taught, shown, and understood. Inclined toward abstraction and personally expressive images, they modeled a commitment to art in the face of commercial and professional pressures. In classrooms and private workshops and through exhibitions, photobooks, and magazines-including Aperture, with White as its founding editor-they offered training and inspiration while building a devoted audience for their pictures.

Blending stunning illustrations with rare archival material published here for the first time, Photography as a Way of Lifebrings together the work of three boldly inventive artists and educators who opened new possibilities for photography in postwar America and exemplified a vision of learning and living through photography.

Published in association with the Princeton University Art Museum

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Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544-1018 USA

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Exhibition: ‘Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography’ at the National Gallery of Art, Washington

“While the photographs in this posting portray the cultures and communities associated with mining, the industries, towns and cities, the people and the landscapes what they don’t account for is the ongoing physical, psychological and emotional scars that the results of mining leave behind.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 23rd May – 23rd August, 2026

C0-curators: Diane Waggoner, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art and Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at Milwaukee Art Museum

Zig Jackson, Rising Buffalo (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) (b. 1957)
Indian Man at Kennecott Copper Mine, Tooele, Utah
2004
Gelatin silver print
Image: 33.0 x 40.6cm (13 x 16 in.)
Sheet: 40.6 x 50.8cm (16 x 20 in.)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Accessions Committee purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Michael D. Abrams
© Zig Jackson
Photo: Tenari Tuatagaloa

The rape of the earth

Mining helps improve our lives in so many ways and yet the harm it causes the planet, the severe environmental degradation, indigenous dispossession and systemic violence associated with resource extraction is undeniable.

The phrase “the rape of the earth” “characterises the literal carving up of the landscape. Large-scale operations – such as open-cut mining – strip topsoil, destroy ecosystems, pollute water tables, and leave irreversible physical scars on the terrain. Indigenous groups, such as the Sámi feminists against mining in Sábme, use the phrase to describe how mining fractures the sacred, interdependent web of connection between land, humans, and nonhuman lifeworlds.” (Google AI)

The interdependent web of connection between land, humans and nonhuman lifeworlds running beneath the surface, hidden from view, that life force of the world and the cosmos that is so violently ruptured in the mining process.

While the photographs in this posting portray the cultures and communities associated with mining, the industries, towns and cities, the people and the landscapes what they don’t account for is the ongoing physical, psychological and emotional scars that the results of mining leave behind. Scars that riddle the earth’s surface as much as they do the minds of the people that love this planet as a holistic entity. You only have to look at Zig Jackson, Rising Buffalo’s photograph Indian Man at Kennecott Copper Mine, Tooele, Utah (2004, above) to understand what I mean.

When it’s all too late only then will we have realised what we have lost.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to the National Gallery of Art, Washington for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Unknown photographer (American)
Portrait of a California gold miner with pick and shovel
c. 1855
Quarter-plate daguerreotype
Plate (quarter): 4 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. (10.8 x 8.26cm)
Case (tray): 4 11/16 x 3 5/8 x 3/8 in. (11.91 x 9.22 x 0.97cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation

Environmental impacts of mining

The environmental impacts of mining are significant. Establishing mining sites requires an enormous amount of construction, which often causes deforestation and loss of wildlife habitats and biodiversity.

Surface mines, which require the use of explosives and heavy machinery to expose materials near the earth’s surface, cause massive canyon-sized holes in the land and lead to soil erosion and degradation around surrounding areas. Mountaintop removal mining, a method of coal mining, uses explosives to blast the entire top of a mountain.

Surface mines create a huge amount of waste materials. Mines release harmful substances into the air and water, and can cause serious health issues if inhaled or consumed. Mines also release acidic water, which can kill marine life and make freshwater unsuitable for drinking. Underground mining produces fewer waste materials than surface mines, but they are risky for mine workers.

The mining industry emits carbon via transportation and energy use, and produces fossil fuels – the largest source of carbon emissions in the world.

Even after mines are decommissioned, they continue to impact the environment. Acid mine drainage occurs after mines have been abandoned, and results in heavy metals entering water systems and harming the plants, animals and humans that consume it.

Social impacts of mining

Mining can create employment opportunities, boost economies and provide investment for local development projects. However, mining operations that don’t respect human rights or protect the environment can cause significant harm to surrounding communities.

Anonymous. “Resource wealth, poverty, and environmental impact in mining,” on the Oxfam Australia website, 1 July 2025 [Online] Cited 18/08/2026

American 19th Century
Shipping Oil – Story Farm
1860s-1870s
Stereoscopic albumen silver print
Image/sheet: 7.94 × 14.92cm (3 1/8 × 5 7/8 in.)
Mount: 8.73 × 17.46cm (3 7/16 × 6 7/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon
Public domain

James F. Ryder (American, 1826-1904)
Atlantic & Great Western Railway
1862
Albumen print
Image/sheet: 18.8 x 23.7cm (7 3/8 x 9 5/16 in.)
Mount: 25.3 x 32.4cm (9 15/16 x 12 3/4 in.)
Mat: 14 x 18 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Public domain

Thomas H. Johnson (American, b. 1821 – d. ?)
Gibson’s Breaker, Rushdale, Del. & Hudson Canal Co.,
c. 1863-1865
Albumen print
Image/sheet: 30.7 x 41cm (12 1/16 x 16 1/8 in.)
Mount: 44.3 x 53cm (17 7/16 x 20 7/8 in.)
Mat: 20 x 26 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Public domain

Thomas H. Johnson (American, b. 1821 - d. ?) 'Birdsey Breaker, Rushdale, Del. & Hudson Canal Co.,' 1863-1865

Thomas H. Johnson (American, b. 1821 – d. ?)
Birdsey Breaker, Archbald, Del. & Hudson Canal Co.,
1863-1865
Albumen print
Image/sheet: 30.6 x 40.8cm (12 1/16 x 16 1/16 in.)
Mount: 45.4 x 55.6cm (17 7/8 x 21 7/8 in.)
Mat: 20 x 26 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
Public domain

Andrew Joseph Russell (American, 1829-1902)
Valley of Bitter Creek from Coal Mine
1867-1869
Albumen silver print
22.86 x 29.53cm (9 x 11 5/8 in.)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Gift of Union Pacific Railroad Company

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Savage Mine, Curtis Shaft, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
albumen silver print
Image: 14.45 x 19.53cm (5 11/16 x 7 11/16 in.)
Sheet: 19.53 x 26.83cm (7 11/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
Mount: 31.75 x 37.78cm (12 1/2 x 14 7/8 in.)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Timothy O’Sullivan photographed men preparing to descend 900 feet into the mine.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) 'Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nevada 1868 Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nevada' 1868

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Image: 18.89 x 13.49cm (7 7/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
Sheet: 18.26 x 26.99cm (7 3/16 x 10 5/8 in.)
Mount: 31.59 x 37.31cm (12 7/16 x 14 11/16 in.)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

O’Sullivan used a magnesium flash to illuminate a miner wielding an axe underground.

Thomas Houseworth (American, 1828-1916)
Hydraulic Mining – Behind the Pipes, in the Kennebunk Claim, Birchville, Nevada County
c. 1868-1869
Stereoscopic albumen prints
Image: 7.9 x 20.6cm (3 1/8 x 8 1/8 in.)
Sheet: 8.9 x 17.5cm (3 1/2 x 6 7/8 in.)
Wikipedia Commons Public domain

B.F. Childs (American, 1841-1921)
New York, Iron Mine [Michigan]
c. 1871-1876
Stereoscopic albumen print
Image: 7.9 x 15.9cm (3 1/8 x 6 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 8.7 x 17.5cm (3 7/16 x 6 7/8 in.)
Collection of Leonard A. Walle

Brainard F. Childs photographed a man outside an iron mine in Michigan. He’s dwarfed by its dark and cavernous entrance.

Brainard Fermont Childs (1841-1921) was an American 19th-century photographer best known for his studio portraits and stereoviews documenting the Great Lakes region, particularly Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Operating the Child’s Art Gallery in Marquette, Michigan, he captured extensive regional landscapes, scenes of early mining and shipping on Lake Superior, and local Ojibwe life. Today, many of his surviving albumen prints and glass-plate negatives are preserved in historical collections, including the British Museum.

Google AI

B.F. Childs (American, 1841-1921)
Down the Franklin Tramroad
c. 1867-1868
Stereoscopic albumen prints
Image: 7.5 x 16.2cm (2 15/16 x 6 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 8.3 x 17.2cm (3 1/4 x 6 3/4 in.)
Collection of Leonard A. Walle

Dependent on precious metals from its inception, photography has always been intertwined with the natural resources that are fundamental to modern industrialised life. Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography is the first exhibition to exclusively examine how photographers from the mid-19th century to today have powerfully captured the effects of resource extraction on the land and communities of the United States. Featuring some 150 photographs that span 185 years, this exhibition focuses especially on the subterranean removal of the minerals and fossil fuels that power this country’s economy and industry. Together, these works demonstrate how photographers have drawn on changing technology and unique visual strategies to rise to the challenge of picturing these colossal industries.

Made for a variety of purposes, ranging from commercial boosterism and celebration of technical advancement to social documentation and community activism, the pictures in the exhibition shed light on how photography has revealed the costs of extraction and who benefits from its success. Divided into six broad, chronological sections that contextualise the complex history of photography and extraction, from daguerreotypes of the Gold Rush to large-scale, immersive photographs made in the last decade, Beneath the Surface highlights how artists have used photography to explore the relationship between extraction, society, and the environment.

This exhibition is curated by Diane Waggoner, curator of photographs, National Gallery of Art, and Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts, Milwaukee Art Museum.

The exhibition is organised by the National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

Text from the National Gallery of Art website

Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Malakoff Diggins, North Bloomfield, Nevada County [California]
1871
Albumen print
Image: 41.59 x 54.61cm (16 3/8 x 21 1/2 in.)
Mount: 55.88 x 71.12cm (22 x 28 in.)
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

F. Jay Haynes (American, 1853-1921)
Granite Silver Mine, Montana
c. 1880
Albumen print
Image: 42.7 x 54.5cm (16 13/16 x 21 7/16 in.)
Sheet: 43 x 54.9cm (16 15/16 x 21 5/8 in.)
Mat: 22 x 28 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of the UBS Art Collection
Public domain

Originally a studio photographer from the North Dakota Territory, Haynes spent most of his career documenting in pictures the development of the western territories. Commissioned in 1876 to make views along the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad, he traveled through the West until 1905, working in a railroad car equipped as both gallery and darkroom. Besides photographing spectacular views of natural scenery, Haynes produced an extensive record of the modification of the landscape by raliroad and industry.

On an 1881 trip to the newly created Yellowstone Park, via the new line of his railroad company employer, Haynes decided to pursue a commercial concession as park photographer. In 1884 he opened a studio and photography gallery in Yellowstone, selling to tourists prints of the park’s natural wonders, such as the Lone Star Geyser Cone. For more than thirty years Haynes served as the official photographer of Yellowstone National Park.

Merry A. Foresta American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996) on the Smithsonian American Art Museum website Nd [Online] Cited 21/07/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

West & Waddell (American, Bradford, Pennsylvania, active 1880s)
Flowing Well
1880s
Stereoscopic albumen silver prints
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon
Public domain

Photographs of oil derricks document the rush that followed the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859.

William H. Rau (American, 1855-1920)
South Plainfield Coal Storage, capacity 100,000 tons
c. 1890
Albumen print
Image: 43.5 x 52.1cm (17 1/8 x 20 1/2 in.)
Collection of Paul Sack

Lewis Wickes Hine (American, 1874-1940)
“A lonely job.” Willie Bryden, a nipper, 13 yrs old, Pittston, Pa.,
1911
Gelatin silver print
Image: 11.43 x 13.49cm (4 1/2 x 5 5/16 in.)
Milwaukee Art Museum
Gift of Robert Mann

Frank J. Schlueter (American, 1874-1972)
Goose Creek, Tex. oil field
1917
Gelatin silver print, panorama
Sheet: 19.6 x 150.3cm (7 11/16 x 59 3/16 in.)
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Public domain

Schlueter photographed the quickly growing Houston region in the first half of the twentieth century, retiring in 1964. Schlueter’s work was used by early oil producers in the region to document and promote their work

The National Gallery of Art presents Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography, the first exhibition to exclusively examine the relationship between resource extraction and American photography throughout its history. Spanning nearly 200 years, the exhibition examines how photographers have approached the challenge of capturing the significant but often hidden processes and impacts of the extraction of minerals, coal, and fossil fuels and its associated industries.

Featuring 150 photographs by more than 100 artists, including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, David Maisel, Gordon Parks, Mitch Epstein, Carleton Watkins, Will Wilson, and more, Beneath the Surface reveals how generations of photographers have utilised evolving technologies and distinctive visual strategies to document the industries that power and shape modern life. Beneath the Surface will be on view at the National Gallery of Art from May 23 to August 23, 2026, before travelling to the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

“As a defining visual medium of our modern age, photography is an essential tool to capture and communicate our shared history,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. “Beneath the Surface brings together a dynamic range of works to shed light on the medium’s intersections with a shaping force in American history and industry.”

The featured works, many of which are drawn from the National Gallery’s significant photography collection, span early daguerreotypes from the time of the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s to pictures of rapid industrialisation in the 20th century and contemporary photographs produced at an immense scale. This expansive selection traces the layered history of extraction and how artists have used photography as a lens through which to communicate the industry’s relationship with society and the natural world.

“Photography itself is dependent on precious metals for its very existence, from the light sensitivity of silver in early processes to the copper of contemporary digital-camera batteries. At the same time, it has been the principal visual medium employed to depict extractive industries, evolving alongside the expansion of mining on an industrial scale since the 19th century,” said Diane Waggoner, co-curator of the exhibition and curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. “Beneath the Surface unites photographs made for a variety of purposes, from explicitly promotional and commercial uses to documentation efforts and socially engaged activism, shedding light on both the rewards and costs of resource extraction.”

The exhibition orients visitors with an introductory gallery displaying contemporary work, foregrounding themes relevant to the current moment and providing a critical framework for understanding the six broad, chronological sections that follow. Viewers will encounter works not only by historical photographers recognised for their work in capturing mining, drilling, and industrial subjects, such as Carleton Watkins, Margaret Bourke-White, Marion Post Wolcott, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, but also by less expected practitioners Florence Kemmler, Alma Lavenson, and Mary Morris. The exhibition includes works by contemporary photographers Edward Burtynsky, Binh Danh, Terry Evans, Victoria Sambunaris, and Cara Romero, among others.

“For almost two centuries photographers have played a central role in public understanding of resource extraction, drawing on a succession of technologies and strategies to capture activities that enable modern life but resist portrayal,” said Kristen Gaylord, co-curator of the exhibition and Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at Milwaukee Art Museum. “This exhibition demonstrates how, time and again, photographers have creatively pushed against the medium’s boundaries in a quest to impart the enormity of the country’s extractive activities and their effects.”

Beneath the Surface centres on the challenges artists face in capturing the colossal scale of extraction and its far-reaching impacts on communities and the environment. It also reveals the inventive strategies they have employed to depict this subject. The works on view reflect the full breadth of the medium, spanning landscapes, portraits of workers and panoramas of affected communities, photobooks, aerial imagery, analog and digital collage, camera-less photography, historical processes, narrative and performance work, and pictures that otherwise harness photography to communicate the scope of these industries.

Press release from the National Gallery of Art

Florence Kemmler (American, 1900-1972)
Oil Drums
c. 1929
Chlorobromide print
Image: 26.67 x 34.61cm (10 1/2 x 13 5/8 in.)
Mat: 18 x 22 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund

The husband-and-wife team of Roland E. Schneider (1884-1934), and Florence B. Kemmler (1900-1972), were internationally exhibited salon photographers whose beautifully rendered works straddle both Pictorialist and modernist sensibilities. The San Diego couple worked together using the same 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 Graflex cameras and identical printing and mounting techniques. Nearly all their photographs were contact printed on warm, brownish black-toned chlorobromide papers.

Text from the Joseph Bellow Gallery website

Alma Lavenson (American, 1897-1989)
Tanks, Standard Oil Company
1931
Gelatin silver print
Sheet (trimmed to image): 24 x 18.4cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
Mat: 20 x 16 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography

In 1930 she was introduced to Adams, Cunningham and Weston by art collector Albert Bender. Bender also wrote Lavenson a letter of introduction to give to Edward Weston. Two years later she was invited to participate in the famous Group f/64 show at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, although there is some uncertainty about whether she should actually be called a “member” of Group f/64, given her association with Pictorialism. The announcement for the show at the de Young Museum listed seven photographers in Group f/64 and said “From time to time various other photographers will be asked to display their work with Group f/64. Those invited for the first showing are: Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Brett Weston.” However, in 1934 the group posted a notice in Camera Craft magazine that said “The F:64 group includes in its membership such well known names as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, John Paul Edwards, Imogene [sic] Cunningham, Consuela [sic] Kanaga and several others.” Lavenson was not mentioned by name in that notice, but her name is always listed as being associated with the group because of her place in the first exhibition. She was included in an exhibition of photography “by members and associates of Group f.64” held at Gallery 210, Lucas Hall, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Apr. 3-30, 1978.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1936
Gelatin silver print mounted on paperboard
Sheet (trimmed to image): 19 x 23.8cm (7 1/2 x 9 3/8 in.)
Support: 45.7 x 37.6cm (18 x 14 13/16 in.)
Mat: 16 x 20 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mary and David Robinson

In 1936, Walker Evans captured several iconic photographs in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, during his landmark documentary work for the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration. His lens famously depicted the stark juxtapositions of the city’s industrial boom, highlighting steel mills looming over residential neighbourhoods and graveyards, as well as scenes of local auto graveyards.

Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915-1985)
Copper Pit, Ruth, Nevada
1940
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.13 x 18.73cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 25.4 x 20.32cm (10 x 8 in.)
Mat: 50.8 x 40.64cm (20 x 16 in.)
Black Dog Collection

Born in New York City in 1915, Arthur Rothstein showed an early interest in photography. While studying at Columbia University, he met economics instructor Roy Stryker, who would later establish the photographic section of the Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration) in Washington, DC. Appreciating Rothstein’s technical proficiency and enthusiasm for photography, Stryker hired him in 1935 as the first staff photographer for the FSA. Praised for the directness and immediacy of his imagery, Rothstein produced notable photographic series on farming communities in the Midwestern Dust Bowl. After leaving the FSA in 1940, Rothstein took a position as photographer for Look magazine; he remained there until 1971, ultimately serving as the magazine’s director of photography.

Text from the International Center of Photography website

Russell Lee (American, 1903-1986)
Butte, Montana. Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Train of fifty-ton cars of copper ore leaving mines at Butte for smelter at Anaconda Montana
1942
Gelatin silver print
Mount: 29.21 x 24.29cm (11 1/2 x 9 9/16 in.)
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Public domain

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Crude oil, fuel oil, gas oil, range oil and gasoline pipelines leading from the waterfront to the Everett Refinery. Everett, Massachusetts, May 1944
c. 1944
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 35.9 x 27.8cm (14 1/8 x 10 15/16 in.)
Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
Courtesy of Exxon Mobil Corporation

Fons Ianelli (American, 1917-1988)
Jim Faye returning from the mines, Harlan County, Appalachia
1946
Gelatin silver print
Black Dog Collection
Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery
© Fons Ianelli

Andreas Feininger (American, 1906-1999)
Oil Derricks on Signal Hall, California
1948
Gelatin silver print
Image: 20.32 x 25.08cm (8 x 9 7/8 in.)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of the Feininger Family
© Estate of Andreas Feininger

Arthur Grace (American, b. 1947)
Coal Miners’ Strike, Kelley’s Creek Hollow, West Virginia
December 1977
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Arthur Grace

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Doris McKinney, Republic Steel
1978-1979
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.3 x 17cm (7 3/16 x 6 11/16 in.)
Sheet: 25.3 x 20.3cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.)
Mat: 14 x 16 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Pierre Cremieux and Denise Jarvinen
© 2025, the Estate of Milton Rogovin

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Doris McKinney with Her Two Sons, Republic Steel
1987
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.1 x 17.7cm (7 1/8 x 6 15/16 in.)
Sheet: 25.2 x 20.3cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.)
Mat: 14 x 16 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Pierre Cremieux and Denise Jarvinen

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Tom Stroud, oil field worker, Velma, Oklahoma, 6/12/80
1980
Gelatin silver print
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
© The Richard Avedon Foundation

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Mining Exploration near Carson City, Nevada
1988
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.5 x 25cm (9 5/8 x 9 13/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.7 x 35.5cm (10 7/8 x 14 in.)
Mat: 16 x 18 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Jane P. Watkins

Photographing American Mining and Energy

Elizabeth Fortune

For nearly two centuries, American photography and the mining of valuable natural resources have been deeply intertwined.

Introduced in 1839, photography premiered less than a decade before successive metal mining booms transformed the landscape and demographics of the American West. Emerging extractive industries hired photographers to promote their operations and attract investors and workers.

Since photography’s inception, artists have used a range of techniques and formats to depict resource extraction like coal mining and oil drilling, which often occurs in remote locations, sometimes underground. Their aims and attitudes range from enthusiastic boosterism to impassioned critique. Together, these photographers’ works unearth and make visible the history of industrial mining and its continued impact on our everyday lives and the American landscape.

Daguerreotypes

After the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California, hundreds of thousands of aspiring miners flocked to the West Coast. Posed with tools of his trade, this miner was one of many who sat for a daguerreotype to memorialise their quest for precious metals.

The mining of silver, copper, and mercury was essential for the creation of daguerreotypes: the process produces a unique image on a highly polished silver-coated copper plate.

Stereographs

Photographers took advantage of the stereograph to make immersive scenes of resource extraction. A popular photographic format from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s, the stereograph features two pictures of the same subject taken about 2 1/2 inches apart, roughly the distance between our eyes. When seen through a stereoscope viewer, the two pictures appear to combine into a three-dimensional image (the equivalent of early 3D glasses).

Photographers were dispatched across the country and American territories to document places of interest. Sites of resource extraction were a particular draw. The discovery and mining of oil, gold, silver, and other materials excited many with the promise of prosperity and beckoned fortune seekers to these burgeoning industries.

Commissions and Surveys

Mining companies, as well as related businesses like railroads, commissioned early photographers to document industrial infrastructure as a way to mark technological advancements and to attract investors.

The Delaware and Hudson Railroad and Canal Company hired Thomas H. Johnson to photograph the expansion of their coal mining operations in northeastern Pennsylvania These “breakers” broke coal into fragments and sorted them by size.

Government-sponsored surveys presented other opportunities for nineteenth-century photographers to travel across the country and document mining sites. While on a geological survey in 1868, Timothy O’Sullivan photographed silver mining at the Comstock Lode in Nevada. There, he produced some of the first subterranean photographs.

Panoramas

The enormous scale demanded by resource extraction calls for a grand mode of representation. The panorama, derived from the Greek words for “complete” and “view,” is an ideal format. Its size and breadth can accommodate the vastness of industrial enterprises.

Frank Schlueter’s 1917 panoramic photograph, taken at Goose Creek, Texas, captures men and horses working alongside huge oil derricks, some so tall they extend beyond the picture frame. In 1901, oil was discovered at Spindletop along the Gulf Coast of Texas, which ushered in the modern petroleum industry and the Texas oil boom. Seeking business as a photographer, Schlueter opened a nearby studio and began accepting commissions for pictures of oil fields.

A century later, Indigenous photographer Lewis deSoto (Cahuilla) used the panoramic format to show power generation in California. Here, a picturesque coastline is dotted with palm trees and people enjoying the sunny Southern California day. In the distance rises the Encina Power Station, which permanently closed in 2018. The panorama’s wide vista reveals the looming presence of industry in even the most scenic of places.

The title refers to Carlsbad, the current name of the city where the beach is located, and Payómkawichum, the name Native Americans of the area call themselves. deSoto invokes the Indigenous name to link industrial power generation with the ancestral power imbued in the land.

Modernist Forms

Modernist photographers, with their interest in abstract shapes and daring camera angles, found a fitting subject in the sharp geometric forms of industrial facilities and machinery.

In the late 1920s, Margaret Bourke-White spent several months photographing inside the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, Ohio. She called the evenings spent at the factory “a photographic paradise.” Bourke-White’s picture of glowing molten metal celebrates what she deemed the “beauty waiting to be discovered” at the plant.

In 1944, Gordon Parks joined a group of photographers hired by Standard Oil New Jersey to promote the company’s role in supporting the war effort. In Parks’s dynamic composition, orderly rows of cylindrical pipes converge at the horizon line, carrying oil to the Everett Finery in Massachusetts. Plumes of white steam hover over the refinery, suggesting a constant churn of manpower and machinery.

Aerial Views

Adopting a bird’s-eye view has allowed photographers to record the extent of resource extraction and the way it has marked our landscape. Photographers can also bypass access restrictions to industrial sites by flying overhead with a plane or drone. From the sky, a paradox emerges: although we can see more from a distance, the elevation skews scale and at times heightens the aesthetic appeal of earthbound places.

Taken from a helicopter, Emmet Gowin’s picture of a mining exploration near Carson City, Nevada, reveals an elaborate pattern of topographical scars. Gowin acknowledged the distorting effect of viewing industrial sites from the sky, remarking, “From the air it seemed like everything I was seeing was miraculous.”

Photographer Will Wilson (Diné) used a drone to capture this aerial view of pearl and copper hued remediation ponds that hold residual waste from uranium mining. Located in northwest New Mexico on the lands of the Navajo Nation, Church Rock Mill is the site of the largest radioactive spill in American history. The radioactive waste poses risks to nearby communities and ecosystems. By surveilling the remediation ponds from above, Wilson calls attention to these hazardous sites.

Portraits

Pictures of laborers in extractive industries spotlight those who power our nation. Sometimes operating in high-risk environments, these workers feed important supply chains. Portrait photographers foreground the humanity of their subjects and individualise the massive workforce supporting our industrial economy.

From 1979 to 1985, Richard Avedon traveled across 17 American states to photograph working-class Americans for his portrait project In the American West. Coal miners and oil field workers were among his most frequent subjects. Avedon is known for his portraits of celebrities and politicians, but here he elevates each worker to a vaunted status.

Tom Stroud, an oil field worker from Velma, Oklahoma, stands before Avedon’s signature white backdrop and looks directly at the camera. His skin, clothing, and helmet are splotched with mud and oil (Avedon preferred to photograph subjects at the end of their shifts). The portrait’s large size – about five feet tall by four feet wide – gives monumental status to Stroud and his labor.

Large-Scale Color Photographs

At first glance, the tidy yards, pristine garden shed, and welcoming patio furniture form an idyllic suburban scene. But in the distance, massive smokestacks and a cooling tower overtake the hazy gray sky.

Mitch Epstein’s mammoth picture records the looming presence of the Amos Coal Power Plant in Raymond City, West Virginia. The exceptional size (62 x 80 inches) of Epstein’s composition places us within a serene neighbourhood dominated by the coal industry. Its monumental scale confronts us with the immensity of extractive operations and the impact these industries have on the lands and people of the United States.

Text from the National Gallery of Art website

In the Library: Photobooks and American Energy

This presentation draws from the National Gallery of Art Library collections. It looks at how artists use photobooks to reveal the impact of the energy industry on the American landscape and people.

In conjunction with Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography, the National Gallery of Art Library presents an installation of 25 books and 2 zines examining how photographers use photobooks to document the impact of energy extraction, production, and circulation on the American landscape and its communities.

The books and zines on view illustrate complex narratives about how America is powered today, revealing the visual strategies and design decisions contemporary photographers use to contextualise and share their work. In the library reading room adjacent to the exhibition area, additional photobooks are available for visitors to browse.

Books offer a different experience than seeing images on a wall or your social media feed. Complex stories are told when photos join text, other printed elements, and even the book binding. Come explore a wide-ranging selection of photobooks by contemporary photographers – then handle more examples in our reading room.

Curated by Yuri Long, special collections librarian at the National Gallery, this installation is on view from May 25 through August 21, 2026, in the East Building Library Atrium from 11.00 am to 4.30 pm, Monday through Friday, except federal holidays.

Text from the National Gallery of Art website

Mitch Epstein (American, b. 1952)
Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004
2004, printed 2025
Inkjet print
Image/sheet: 157.48 x 203.2cm (62 x 80 in.)
Framed: 160.02 x 207.01 x 6.35cm (63 x 81 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of the artist
© Mitch Epstein

Victoria Sambunaris (American, b. 1964)
Untitled (Coaldale, Pennsylvania)
2007
Chromogenic print
Overall: 99.06 x 139.7cm (39 x 55 in.)
Mat: 41 x 57 in. (approx.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Lannan Foundation
© Victoria Sambunaris and Yancey Richardson Gallery

David Maisel (American, b. 1961) 'American Mine, Carlin, Nevada 1' 2007, printed 2024

LaToya Ruby Frazier (American, b. 1982)
U.S.S. Edgar Thomson Steel Works & Monongahela
2013
Gelatin silver print
Image/sheet: 121.29 x 151.77cm (47 3/4 x 59 3/4 in.)
Framed: 123.83 x 154.31 x 4.45cm (48 3/4 x 60 3/4 x 1 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund
© LaToya Ruby Frazier

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi, b. 1977)
Oil Boom
2015, printed 2023
From the series Water Memories
inkjet print
Image: 101.6 x 100.33cm (40 x 39 1/2 in.)
Sheet: 111.76 x 110.49cm (44 x 43 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Funds from Renée Harbers Liddell
© Cara Romero. All rights reserved

Andrew Borowiec (American, b. 1956)
Blast Furnace, Cleveland
2016
Inkjet print
Image: 67.95 x 101.6cm (26 3/4 x 40 in.)
Sheet: 80.01 x 111.76cm (31 1/2 x 44 in.)
Mat: 32 3/4 x 46 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Charina Endowment Fund

Will Wilson (Diné) (b. 1969)
Shiprock Disposal Site, Shiprock, Navajo Nation, 36. 769690596277414 N / -108. 68547605691704 W
2020
Inkjet print
Image: 60.96 x 121.92cm (24 x 48 in.)
Sheet: 94.62 x 109.22cm (37 1/4 x 43 in.)
Back mat: 35 15/16 x 43 1/2 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Charina Endowment Fund in memory of Robert B. Menschel
Courtesy of the artist and www.dineconnect.org

National Gallery of Art
National Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets
Constitution Avenue NW, Washington

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Art website

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Photographs: Aaron Siskind ‘Harlem Photographs’ 1932-1940

“This is where I think that Siskind was less than happy with the results of his documentary photographs – that they weren’t giving him what he wanted out of his art: that interface of the image and imagination.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

July 2026

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Boys in Empty Tenement
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print

Image and imagination

I always find it fascinating to view the first few years of an artist’s journey, the golden path they take, for it more than likely informs all that is to come.

In the greatest abstract expressionist photographer the world has known, Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991), his starting point was as a straight documentary photographer, a member of the New York Photo League, a “left-leaning documentary collective, which prioritised using photography to advocate for social change.”

Using a large format camera and tripod Siskind, for his photo project Harlem Document, captured “the vibrancy, harsh realities, and daily life of the Black community in Harlem” – images which had their roots in American social documentary photography of the period and photographers such as Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks and the photographers of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) government program (1935-1944) which documented the struggles of rural Americans during the Great Depression.

As I have written in a 2023 text titled “Transcending reality”, “To my mind American photographers of the 1930s took photographs not only to document but also to honor what was greater and more interesting than they were. Not as a melding of reality-dream … but as an exploration of what is possible through the interface of the image and imagination, the interface as Ansel Adams put it “between the reality of the world and the reality of yourself”.”

This is where I think that Siskind was less than happy with the results of his documentary photographs – that they weren’t giving him what he wanted out of his art: that interface of the image and imagination.

“In working from the documentary approach, I had always tried to find what kind of meaning you could get in a picture of that kind, and was beginning to feel that I was not getting it. I felt I wasn’t getting anything really personal, really powerful and special…. My documentary pictures were very quiet and very formal.”1

Moving into the 1940s Siskind began experimenting with more abstract compositions (with their link to Abstract Expressionist painting). Evidence of this reorientation in his image making can already be seen in some of the documentary photographs in this posting. For example, the photographs Facades (1938, below) and Harlem (1938, below) both propose the flattening of the photographic surface with an interest in the geometry and abstraction of form – circle, oblong, square, diagonal, curve, line – within the pictorial plane, but with an attendant emphasis on light, texture and tone.

“Though he did not create the lines, shapes, rhythms and patterns in his images, he nonetheless expressed the lyricism of their relationships by harmoniously arriving at the perfect composition. And though his abstract photographs possessed undeniable content, he subverted that content by offering new interpretive possibilities based on the feelings the images conveyed.”2

Image and imagination.

Thus, Siskind was intelligent enough, was aware and informed enough, of his feelings towards the world and the cultural developments around him to approach a crossroads in his development as an artist, to recognise, that is the key word, to recognise the path he needed, he wanted to take.

And so we are forever grateful to have his abstract expressionist photographs that his spirit guided him towards, photographs that may also light our own path.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. I have added relevant information on Siskind’s art practice, theatres, and ballrooms where possible and I have also included an extract from Gordon Parks’ forward to Siskind’s book Harlem Document.

1/ Jaromir Stephany unpublished interview with Aaron Siskind, February 1963. This interview is in the private papers of Jaormir Stephany quoted in Marcia Battle. “Harlem: A Document,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp. 4-6

2/ Phillip Barcio. “How Aaron Siskind Found Abstraction On The Streets,” on the Ideelart website, Feb 15, 2017 [Online] Cited 17/07/2026

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Photography has tremendous social value. Upon the photographer rests the responsibility and duty of recording a true image of the world as it is today. Moreover, he must not only show us how we live, but indicate the logical development of our lives.”

Photo Notes, newsletter of the Photo League, August 1938

Aaron Siskind’s photographs from 1935-1940 form the core of the Harlem Document, a landmark sociological and visual study commissioned by the New York Photo League. Siskind headed the Feature Group of this radical, left-leaning documentary collective, which prioritised using photography to advocate for social change. The images capture the vibrancy, harsh realities, and daily life of the Black community in Harlem during the Great Depression.

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Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Kitchen Scene
1937
Gelatin silver print

From 1937 to 1944, Siskind took pictures in and around Harlem – of its businesses, domestic interiors, religious and social organisations, and nightlife. He did so as a member of the New York Photo League – a documentary photography collective with roots in radical leftist politics – and in collaboration with journalist and sociologist Michael Carter and other photographers as part of a cultural study of Harlem. In 1981 fifty-two of Siskind’s images were published in the book Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940 alongside first-person interviews conducted in the late 1930s by writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, including novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

MoMA Gallery label from 2024

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991) 'Apollo Theatre' 1937

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Apollo Theater
1937
Gelatin silver print

Apollo Theater

Since opening its doors in 1914 and introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, The Apollo has played a major role in the emergence of jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, and soul – all quintessentially American music genres. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and countless others began their road to stardom on the Apollo stage. Today, The Apollo is a respected nonprofit presenting concerts, theatrical and dance performances, film screenings, educational programs, and community outreach programs.

The neoclassical theater known today as The Apollo’s Historic Theater was designed by George Keister and first owned by Sidney Cohen. In 1914, Benjamin Hurtig and Harry Seamon obtained a thirty-year lease on the newly constructed theater, calling it Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theater. Like many American theaters during this time, African-Americans were not allowed to attend as patrons or to perform.

In 1933, Fiorello La Guardia, who would later become New York City’s Mayor, began a campaign against burlesque, and Hurtig & Seamon’s was one of many theaters that would close down. Cohen reopened the building as the 125th Street Apollo Theatre in 1934 with his partner, Morris Sussman, serving as manager. Cohen and Sussman changed the format of the shows from burlesque to variety revues and redirected their marketing attention to the growing African-American community in Harlem.

Frank Schiffman and Leo Brecher took over The Apollo in 1935. The Schiffman and Brecher families would operate the Theater until the late 1970s. The Apollo reopened briefly in 1978 under new management then closed again in November 1979. In 1981, it was purchased by Percy Sutton, a prominent lawyer, politician, media and technology executive, and a group of private investors. Under Sutton’s ownership, the Theater was equipped with a recording and television studio.

Text from the Apollo Theater website. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Lady In Kitchen
1937
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind’s artistic trajectory parallels broader shifts within mid-20th-century American photography. In the 1930s he cut his teeth as a documentary photographer affiliated with the Workers Film and Photo League, an artists’ cooperative that strove to advance progressive political causes. The following decade saw him turn away from studies of society. For the remainder of his career, he created still lifes that aimed to articulate interior states through near-abstract visual fields. Of this dramatic shift in his practice, the artist said, “For some reason or other there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive.”1

Siskind’s documentary work was carefully planned and researched in advance. He honed this approach at the Film and Photo League, which he joined in 1933, only three years after receiving his first camera as a honeymoon gift. Among this community of photographers and filmmakers – many of them, like Siskind, the New York-born children of Jewish immigrants – he found technical guidance and critical feedback. When the League’s photographers broke from its filmmakers to establish the standalone Photo League in 1936, Siskind helped form its Feature Group, a unit dedicated to creating photo essays like those appearing in LIFE magazine and being produced by the Farm Security Administration. Collaborative at its core, the Feature Group prioritised the free exchange of ideas: each project began with a discussion of how to approach photographing its subject and ended with the group assessing their effort collectively. “We discovered a relationship between the clarity of one’s thought and feeling and the clarity of picture-making,” Siskind recalled of these formative dialogues.2

Of the many projects the Feature Group completed during Siskind’s four years of leadership, its most extended and ambitious was Harlem Document. This expansive cultural study of Harlem, undertaken between 1937 and 1940 in close consultation with the sociologist Michael Carter, originally aimed to produce a photographically illustrated book authored by Carter. Although the publication never materialised, Siskind’s photographs for Harlem Document indicate the project’s ambitious scope, depicting street life, domestic interiors, and gathering spots ranging from churches to dance halls to theaters.

Samuel Allen, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography, 2025 on the MoMA website [Online] Cited 14/07/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

1/ Aaron Siskind, “The Drama of Objects,” Minicam Photography 8, no. 9 (June 1945), 23.

2/ Aaron Siskind, “The Feature Group,” Photo Notes (June-July 1940), 7.

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Lafayette Theatre
1937
Gelatin silver print

Lafayette Theatre

The Lafayette Theatre (1912–1951), known locally as “the House Beautiful”, was one of the most famous theaters in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was an entertainment venue located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue. The first major theatre in New York to desegregate, in its early history the theatre was home to the African American repertory theatre company the Lafayette Players. This group was originally founded by Anita Bush as Anita Bush Stock Company in 1914 and became a part of the Lafayette Theatre in 1916 when the theatre bought the stock company. The Lafayette Players was a successful company from the 1910s through the 1930s; after which the company floundered. In 1951 the theatre closed and was sold to the Williams Institutional Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The structure was demolished in 2013.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Night Club I
1937
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Peace Meals
1937
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind’s Harlem document, a mirror of my own past, speaks explicitly for itself. It is an ongoing memory of black people living in crowded kitchenettes; suffering the loneliness of rented bedrooms; prating in leftover churches, and grasping a patch of happiness whenever and wherever they could find it. It is a nostalgic look at a kind of past that threatens to hang around Harlem for a long time to come – to doom it to further frustration and unrest. Those same tenements that once imprisoned me are still there, refusing to crumble, holding other restless black boys for sentence without trial.

I remember swarms of slow-moving people, moving close together up on Lenox Avenue – past child shacks, rib joints, funeral parlours and storefront churches- knowing one another but seldom bothering to speak. A city of blackness crammed inside a white city where, when you walked our the door, you became a stranger. …

Harlem has meant a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, in those days, it meant hunger, cultural devastation, unrequited longing and disillusionment. To others it was the swinging, exciting capitol of the entire Black world, the exotic Mecca of melting music, good times and dancing feet. Yet, for some, it was a sanctuary where loftier dreams were fostered; where now and then some of those dreams were realised, but where mostly they were hopelessly spent. To just about everyone who has worked in the vital processes of its survival, whose life has been textured by its tradition, Harlem is a place that won’t give up. Wobbly now under the impact of the past decades, its history mirror those problems its mother country once endured.

Extract from Gordon Parks. “Foreword,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Street Scene
1937
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Wishing Tree
1937
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Church Interior
1938
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Facades
1938
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Harlem
1938
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind’s interest in photography developed after his experiences with both music and poetry when he was an English teacher in the New York public school system. His early pictures were said to have been attempts at transferring musical and poetic concepts into images.2 Later, as a young adult, Siskind did everything from making political speeches on soapboxes in Manhattan to becoming a member of the Junior Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL).3

A friend gave Siskind his first camera in 1930. He soon discovered his attraction for the instrument, and almost simultaneously he discovered and joined the Photo league. At the League he found people who shared his political and social concerns and who were capable and willing to discuss technical information about photography. Many of the members were children of Jewish immigrants and most, like Siskind, were well educated. Their exhibited images documented illiteracy, discrimination, and poverty and called for social reforms on behalf of the working classes. Before joining the League, Siskind had already photographed some of the poverty-stricken areas of Manhattan and was searching for reaction and criticism to these pictures. …

As a photographer Siskind explored symbols and metaphors to create a visual relationship that balanced aesthetic concerns with social documents. Throughout his career the contrast of subject and symbol have dominated. …

With his work in Harlem Siskind’s style may have been changing. “In working from the documentary approach, I had always tried to find what kind of meaning you could get in a picture of that kind, and was beginning to feel that I was not getting it. I felt I wasn’t getting anything really personal, really powerful and special…. My documentary picture were very quiet and very formal.”4

Extract from Marcia Battle. “Harlem: A Document,” in Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, pp. 4-6. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

2/ Carl Chiarenza, Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors (Little, Brown and Co.,), 6.

3/ Carl Chiarenza, “Form and Content in the Early Work of Aaron Siskind,” The Massachusetts Review 19:4 (Winter 1978): 810.

4/ Jaromir Stephany unpublished interview with Aaron Siskind, February 1963. This interview is in the private papers of Jaormir Stephany.

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Savoy Dancers
1938
Gelatin silver print

Savoy Dancers

The “Savoy Dancers” refer to the pioneering African American dancers who developed the Lindy Hop and other swing dances at the legendary Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. Open from 1926 to 1958, the integrated ballroom housed iconic performers like Frankie Manning and Norma Miller who defined the “home of happy feet”.

These legendary dancers revolutionised social dancing by bringing athleticism, airborne aerials, and improvisational jazz styling to the Lindy Hop. Their legacy continues to thrive through modern swing dance communities and archival footage preserved in documentaries like The Spirit Moves.

About the Savoy Ballroom

From 1926 to 1958, the Savoy Ballroom stood at 596 Lenox Avenue as one of the first racially integrated public spaces in the United States. Its 10,000-square-foot, spring-loaded dance floor welcomed thousands nightly and launched a global dance phenomenon. The Savoy hosted legendary artists including Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie, cementing its place at the heart of Harlem’s cultural history.

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
St. Joseph’s House – The Catholic Worker Movement
c. 1939
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Grocery Store
1940
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Lady and Lamp
1940
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Street Scene
1940
Gelatin silver print

Aaron Siskind (American, 1902-1991)
Watermelon Man
1940
Gelatin silver print

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Exhibition: ‘Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body’ at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

Exhibition dates: 24th January – 28th June, 2026

Curator: Emilia Mickevicius, Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at the Phoenix Art Museum

Claire A. Warden (Canadian)
Genetics
Nd
From the series Mimesis (2015-ongoing)
Cameraless Photograph
© Claire A. Warden

Surrounded by mirrors

” … the human body does not exist and is not understandable apart from the ‘social construction of reality’.” ~ Ted Polhemus

“Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.” ~ Anthony Giddens

Embodiment is the fundamental condition we share.

~ Embodiment refers to the representation or expression of an abstract idea, quality, or feeling in a tangible, visible, or physical form. It describes a person, action, or object that perfectly exemplifies a concept. (Cambridge Dictionary)

~ At its core, the word stems from the root “embody,” meaning “to give a body to”. Philosophically, it refers to the condition of a subject (like a person) inhabiting or being associated with a physical form. (Oxford Academic)

Giving form to the intangible

~ Embodiment links together both broadly cultural and circumstantial usages, the body taking on its meaning at the intersection of narrative, culture, and social interaction… Nowadays, with the current interest in lived experience and embodiment, we assume that some level of cultural meaning is implied in pre-reflection as well. (Cambridge English Corpus)

~ Pre-reflection describes an implicit, automatic awareness that accompanies human experience before you pause to consciously analyse or think about what you are doing. It is an unmediated, “in-the-moment” state of being. (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)

~ In continental philosophy – most notably the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl – pre-reflective consciousness is the immediate, tacit knowledge that an experience is happening to you.

When you are in the zone, as the energy flows through you, in the background you are implicitly aware of taking a photograph – but not in a reflective state, “I have taken a photograph”.

For me, there is a union of mindfulness, body, subject, camera – a seeming suspension of time and space – which may lead to a “revelatio”, a revelation of spirit, a pulling back of the curtain to reveal what is beyond. As a good friend and fellow photographer Frank Vic observes, “To emerge from “the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence” is to let go of the photographer’s intense desire for control and egoistic attachment. Only by facing the subject with an attitude of utmost humility is it possible for the lens to capture a truly objective and sacred “revelation”.”

In modern psychology, the pre-reflective unconscious refers to how your personal history, organising principles, and mental schemas shape your experience without you actively noticing it (Encyclopaedia.com). Thus, it is how unconsciously aware you are of your surroundings, how informed you are through your conversations and reading, how attuned you are to the energy of the body and the world – that directs your gaze.

Some pertinent quotations below.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. The exhibition is divided into four interesting thematic sections – Surface Tension; Kinetic Beauty; Know Thyself; Enduring. Such a pity there are not more photographs to illustrate the many ideas contained within each section.

Many thankx to the Phoenix Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one’s reason, is possible only if one has achieved and attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child.”

Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957, p. 120.

” … the human body does not exist and is not understandable apart from the ‘social construction of reality’. Our bodies and our perception of them constitute an important part of our socio-cultural heritage. They are not simply objects which we inherit at birth, but are socialized (enculturated) throughout life and this process of collectively sanctioned bodily modification may serve as an important instrument for our socialization (enculturation) in a more general sense. That is, in learning to have a body, we also begin to learn about our ‘social body’ – our society.”

Ted Polhemus. Social Aspects of the Human Body. Penguin: Harmonsworth, 1978, p. 21 quoted in Morag MacSween. Anorexic Bodies: A Feminist and Sociological Perspective on Anorexia Nervosa. London: Routledge, 1993, p. 115.

“Consumer capitalism, with its efforts to standardise consumption and to shape tastes through advertising, plays a basic role in furthering narcissism. The idea of generating an educated and discerning public has long since succumbed to the pervasiveness of consumerism, which is a ‘society dominated by appearances’. Consumption addresses the alienated qualities of modern social life and claims to be their solution: it promises the very things the narcissist desires – attractiveness, beauty and personal popularity – through the consumption of the ‘right’ kinds of goods and services. Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.”

Anthony Giddens. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 172.

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing Claire A. Warden’s photograph Genetics Nd (above) from the series Mimesis (2015-ongoing)

Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body

Each of us moves through the world in a body. Though we are marked by differences in our appearances, abilities, and lived experience, embodiment is the fundamental condition we share. Our bodies both empower and limit us: these vessels hold our joy and suffering, our pleasure and pain. They withstand pressure, scrutiny, and change. Through our bodies we confront the edges of our strength, what is in our control and what is not, and the gaps between how we see ourself and how we are perceived. Bodies are sites of contradiction.

Spanning 150 years of images making, and spotlighting several Arizona based artists, this exhibition explores how artists use photography to grapple with bodily existence in all its dimensionality. The camera is a powerful tool for taking an unflinching look at ourselves and others: examining the body’s surface and physicality, suspending its form in motion, and considering how it bears traces of all we endure, from birth to death and everything in between. As a time-based medium, photography is uniquely poised to incrementally record our continuous physical transformation.

Wall text from the exhibition (in the image above)

Mimesis is an ongoing series of large-scale cameraless, abstract photographs that explore identity, representation, resistance, and Opacity.

Mimesis is an ongoing series that engages identity, representation, and language through abstraction and experimental image-making. The creation of this work comes at a time when the struggle to accept the unfamiliar or unkown is pervasive in American culture. When looking at much of my work, the urge to ask “what is it?” echoes the question, “what are you?” – a question directed to me countless times as a person of colour with a diverse ethnocultural heritage and one I increasingly tend to resist. That resistance carries through the work as resistance to definition as well as the hegemonic gaze and, instead, emphasizes Opacity and illegibility. These concepts, informed by anti-essentialism and decolonial theory, ultimately make way for my experimental image-making practice as mode to subvert the problematics of representation in photography, particularly in addressing experiences had by people of color.

For this reason, I believe it is important to know that the Mimesis series is photographic – cameraless photographs – and that I developed a cameraless process that uses saliva to break down the emulsion of film. What is left is metallic silver and my biologic matter – thus exploring photographic materiality, identity formation, and illegibility. These works of self-portraiture do not show a viewer what I look like but are built from my DNA and shaped by my experiences.

Text from the PhMuseum website. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

About the exhibition

Drawn primarily from the collections of the Center for Creative Photography and Phoenix Art Museum, Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body showcases a wide range of historical and contemporary works that explore the ways photographers have represented the human figure and bodily experiences of movement, aging, disability, and more.

Featured works demonstrate how artists have grappled with physicality, dimension, beauty, form, and the politics of the body in the landscape and urban environment. Subjects are presented in the context of growing older, sports, and abstraction, offering audiences the opportunity to consider the body’s ability to morph and bear traces of lived experiences.

Text from the Phoenix Art Museum website

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at right, Richard Avedon Esther Blackmon, sideshow performer, Sidney, Iowa, August 12, 1979 (1979, below)

Surface Tension

How much can you learn about another person by looking at them? Our bodies are the interface between ourselves and the world, but there is often a gap between our exterior presentation and our inner lives. A photograph grants us the license to study someone’s appearance longer than is socially acceptable during real-time interactions, though the viewer must still draw conclusions from what is outwardly visible.

The photographs in this section probe this tension between exteriority and interiority, showcasing what is lost and gained in translating the body’s physicality in the flat plane of an image. By abstracting the body, photographs can help us see the human form anew. Many of these pictures show how skin signifies aesthetic, cultural, and social meanings, even functioning as a canvas for self-expression.

Wall text from the exhibition

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) 'Esther Blackmon, sideshow performer, Sidney, Iowa, August 12, 1979' 1979 (installation view)

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Esther Blackmon, sideshow performer, Sidney, Iowa, August 12, 1979 (installation view)
1979
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
Richard Avedon Archive
Gift of the artist

Photographs of people can both exploit and empower. The power dynamic of a portrait involves not only the interaction between the photographer and subject, but also the viewer’s projections, assumptions and interpretation. Resisting others’ projections of shame about her appearance, Esther Blackmon proclaimed: “I live a normal and happy life.” Born in North Carolina, Blackmon (1926-2003) lived with a hereditary skin disease called ichthyosis which caused dryness and baldness. This unique aspect of her phenotype earned her the nickname “The Alligator Girl.” Actively participating in the carnival industry for 56 years, Blackmon regarded herself with pride. “People born unusual are not freaks … I’d say they are very special people.”

Wall text from the exhibition

Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Lipkind 33
1960
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Aaron Siskind Archive
© Aaron Siskind Foundation

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Leon Borensztein Woman with Tattoo, San Francisco (1984, below); at second left bottom, Stephen Marc, Untitled (2017, below); and at third right bottom, Diane Arbus Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md. (1970, below)

Leon Borensztein (American, b. 1947)
Woman with Tattoo, San Francisco
1984
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase
© Leon Borensztein

Stephen Marc (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2017
Inkjet print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Gift of the Artist
© Stephen Marc

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md.
1970
Gelatin silver print

Kinetic Beauty

Athletic pursuits are one form of human achievement. Photographs of the body in motion attest to a fascination with witnessing bodies at the threshold of their physical limits, accomplishing seemingly superhuman feats or embodying physical ideals. These images simultaneously chart another set of limits; the evolution of photographic technology itself. Some pictures are from an athletic context and some are not, but all arrest fluid, operatic movements of the body in a way that was previously inaccessible to real-time vision. Shutter speeds reached 1/1000th of a second by the end of the 19th century and continued to shorten, enabling photographers to dissect instantaneous components of complex motions. “Seeing” faster than the eye can perceive, the camera revealed new dimensions of bodily grace, strength, and power.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at top left, Charles “Teenie” Harris New York Cubans (1941, below); at bottom left, Eadweard J. Muybridge Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85 (1887, below); at second left, Harold Edgerton Golf Drive by Densmore Shute, 1938 (1938, below); at centre left, Terrell Groggins Gabriels and Shields Square Up Round 1 (2018, below); at centre right, Walter Iooss Michael Jordan, Phoenix at Chicago, 1933 (1933, below); and at far right, Robert Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon (1983)

Charles “Teenie” Harris (American, 1908-1998)
New York Cubans
1941
Gelatin silver print

New York Cubans baseball player Horacio Martinez leaping above third base at Forbes Field

Eadweard J. Muybridge (English, 1830-1904)
Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85
1887
Collotype
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase

Eadweard J. Muybridge (English, 1830-1904)
Animal Locomotion, Plate 521: A: Walking, B: Ascending a Step, C: Throwing the Disc, D: Using a Shovel, E: Using a Pick, 1884-85 (details)
1887
Collotype
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Golf Drive by Densmore Shute, 1938
1938
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase
© Harold Edgerton, MIT, courtesy of Palm Press Inc.

Terrell Groggins (American)
Gabriels and Shields Square Up Round 1
2018, printed 2021
Inkjet print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Center for Creative Photography Photojournalism Fund
© Terrell Groggins My Art My Rules

Walter Iooss (American, b. 1943)
Michael Jordan, Phoenix at Chicago, 1993
1993
Inkjet print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Gift of Rajesh B. Patel
© Walter Iooss

This winter, Phoenix Art Museum presents Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body, an exploration of the ways in which photographers across history have represented and reckoned with the human body and its associated dimensionality, evolution, and politicization. Drawn primarily from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, along with select works from the PhxArt Collection and those by Arizona- based contemporary artists, the exhibition showcases more than 80 wide-ranging works that contend with the body’s form, physicality, and limits. Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body will be on view at PhxArt from January 24, 2026, through June 28, 2026.

“Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body offers a view into the human experience that is both compelling and relatable,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “From sports imagery and self-portraiture to abstract compositions, this exhibition considers all aspects of the body in every stage of evolution. We are excited to once again work with the Center for Creative Photography to present a captivating collection of photographic works, shown in conversation with new acquisitions to the Phoenix Art Museum Collection by contemporary voices.”

Spanning works captured from the 19th century through the present, Muscle Memory offers a compelling look at the dynamism of the human body with works by artists such as:

John Gutmann • Richard Avedon • Brian Weil • Lauren Greenfield • Rosalind Fox Solomon • Anne Noggle • Frances Murray • Walter Iooss • Diane Arbus • Manuel Álvarez Bravo • Imogen Cunningham • Arno Rafael Minkkinen • Roy DeCarava • Harold Edgerton • Aaron Siskind • Charles “Teenie” Harris • W. Eugene Smith • Leon Borensztein • Jan Groover • Ittetsu Morishita • John Coplans • Robert Mapplethorpe • Eadweard J. Muybridge • Graciela Iturbide • Barbara Crane • Nan Goldin • William Camargo • Marcus Chormicle • Mehrdad Mirzaie • Claire A. Warden • Zhang Huan

The exhibition’s works are presented across four thematic sections that offer varying views on embodiment and how our bodies at once empower and limit us. Surface Tension considers skin as a surface and what is possible to know about a person by looking at them, including how a subject’s outward appearance can exist in tension with their interiority. Works in this section by artists such as Diane Arbus and John Gutmann spotlight individuals who have changed their outward appearance with tattoos, makeup, and other markings, exploring the human impulse to use the body as a canvas for personal expression.

Kinetic Beauty features the body in motion, with a specific focus on sports imagery. It explores how bodies interact and take shape in athletic settings, particularly those that require high levels of physical performance, endurance, and even contortion. Works in this section include images of bodybuilders by Robert Mapplethorpe and Brian Weil and a photograph by Walter Iooss featuring Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, as well as abstract studies of bodily motion associated with physical training, strength, and aspiration.

Know Thyself highlights the work of photographers who have used the medium of photography, often in the form of serial self-portraiture, to grapple with issues of aging, beauty standards, and self-image. Featured artists in this section include John Coplans, Lauren Greenfield, Anne Noggle, and Rosalind Fox Solomon.

Enduring presents works by Nan Goldin, Ittetsu Morishita, Marcus Chormicle, and others depicting the body as witness and at its physical limits, whether due to physical exertion, illness, injury, or even death and absence, prompting viewers to consider the concepts of endurance and survival.

“Muscle Memory invites audiences to consider the body’s ability to morph in response to and bear traces of lived experience, while also discovering how photographers have used the medium as a tool for self- knowledge and exploration,” said Emilia Mickevicius, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. “Works by living Arizona-based artists Claire A. Warden, Mehrdad Mirzaie, Marcus Chormicle, and Anh-Thuy Nguyen infuse the presentation with contemporary perspectives on the body’s legibility, how it holds memory, and how it becomes a site of negotiation between selves and others, both extending and departing from the concerns of the historical works in the exhibition.”

Press release from the Phoenix Art Museum

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Robert Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon (1983); and at second right, a group of photographs by John Coplans

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at right, a group of photographs by John Coplans

John Coplans (British, 1920-2003)
Self-portrait (Back with arms above)
1984
Gelatin silver print

John Coplans (British, 1920-2003)
Feet, Frontal
1984
Gelatin silver print

Know Thyself

From toxic beauty standards to agism, pressures to conform, and the pathologising of non-formative identities and lifestyles, cultural messaging interrupts the journey to self-acceptance. The pictures in this section speak to finding a home in one’s body and moving between comfort and discomfort along the way. A particular focus here is serial self-portraiture where photographers train the lens on their own bodies as they reckon with aging. Facing themselves with tender curiosity and vulnerability, they wield the camera as a tool of self-knowledge, confronting their mortality and even revealing in erotic joy. Their pictures suggest the transformative power being seen on one’s own terms.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing photographs by Rosalind Fox Solomon

Rosalind Fox Solomon (American, 1930-2025)
New York, NY
1986
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Rosalind Solomon Archive
© Rosalind Solomon, all rights reserved

Rosalind Fox Solomon described photography as a way of “talking about myself.” For five decades Solomon traversed continents documenting expressions of joy, suffering and spirituality across cultures. Simultaneously, she maintained a consistent practice of self-portraiture. In these pictures Solomon looks frankly at her aging body and evolving self, conveying both empathy and self-estrangement. Photographs of nude older women are still taboo today – a product of a culture that values youth as well as images that are conventionally “flattering” – but Solomon’s photographs suggest the power in embracing and representing what is real.

Wall text from the exhibition

Rosalind Fox Solomon (American, 1930-2025)
Rotterdam (Hotel), Netherlands
1986
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Rosalind Solomon Archive
© Rosalind Solomon, all rights reserved

Manuel Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902-2002)
Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated)
1934
Gelatin silver print

Dan Young
My Mother’s Hand on My Father’s Head, 1992
1992
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase
© Dan Young

Enduring

As the saying goes, “the body keeps the score.” The photographs in this gallery explore how the body holds memory. Outwardly visible marks like scars and wrinkles are testaments to what we have survived, traces of time that resonate with the nurture of photographic images. No matter how strong or fortunate we are, each of us must sustain wounds visible and invisible, go through cycles of suffering and healing, and eventually experience death. We also inherit not only physical characteristics but also stories and trauma from our ancestors. The pictures here are reminders of our bodily fragility, but they also brim with aliveness, inspiring reverence for all that human beings have endured across generations.

William Camargo (American, b. 1989)
As Far As I Can Get in 10 Seconds From The Swapmeet Parking Lot to the Liquor Store After Divola
2020
Inkjet print
22 x 18 in.

Installation view of the exhibition Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, January – June, 2026 showing at left, Roy DeCarava Force, New York (1963, below); at centre, George Dureau Wilbert with Hook (Nd, below); and at second right, William Camargo As Far As I Can Get in 10 Seconds From The Swapmeet Parking Lot to the Liquor Store After Divola (2020, above)

Roy DeCarava (American, 1919-2009)
Force, New York
1963
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase

A woman being arrested at a New York protest

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Wilbert with Hook
Nd
Gelatin silver print

Graciela Iturbide (Mexican, b. 1942)
Magnolia, Juchitán, Oaxaca, México
1986
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase
© Graciela Iturbide

Leon Borensztein (American, b. 1947)
Woman with Polka Dots, San Francisco
1984
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona: Purchase
© Leon Borensztein

Phoenix Art Museum
McDowell Road & Central Avenue
1625 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004

Opening hours:
Monday and Tuesday Museum closed
Wednesday: 10am – 7pm
Thursday – Sunday: 10am – 5pm

Phoenix Art Museum website

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Vale Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) – storyteller

June 2026

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026)
What is Time?
1994
Gelatin silver print
16 × 19 7/8 inches (40.6 × 50.5cm)
Gift of Duane Michals
The Morgan Library & Museum

“Time is the duration of everything, and life is an event, a fluttering of wings.”

Duane Michals

There is no time

Vale the transcendent Duane Michals – storyteller.

Magician, poet, philosopher and dreamer.

An artist, like Joseph Cornell, who I have always felt a special affinity / infinity towards.

I wrote in earlier postings on his work:

“As he says, his work goes beyond description, beyond surfaces, to reveal the subject – not as it looks but as it feels. In his sequences he usually achieves this by posing a question that has no answer, a question that is like a Zen koan… what is the sound of one hand clapping? The grandfather ascends smilingly to heaven with little wings on his back as the child waves goodbye (if youth knew, if age could); the man as human condition turns into a galaxy; and the spirit leaves the body as it was left before. …

Michals staged, narrative scenes take us on a journey into his reality, one which “has entered a realm beyond observation.” He poses difficult questions that force us to examine ideas beyond the world of phenomena, beyond the world of surfaces. He challenges our repressed inner lives and our idealised image of ourselves, disturbing the boundaries of personality, ego, and identity.”1

And

“Duane Michals is one of the greatest photographic storytellers of the twentieth century. His parables – seemingly simple stories used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson – resonate, vibrate, with energy, and insight into, the human condition. They are as profound as the air we breathe but cannot see – expressing the invisible, presencing the spiritual. I feel, I know these stories, intimately. Those things-for-which-there-are-no-words. …

There are things here not seen in this photograph. The spirit leaves the body. William Blake and Duane Michals. Enchanted melancholy. The mysterious / music. In swift embrace. In love. In memory. In death. The fluidity of the line of the artist. Things are queer. The world implodes and ravages itself. Paradise is reborn. The letter, and love, from my father that I, also, never did receive. The nature of reality. Truth? … When I was young. What was time?”2

It was Michals great skill as an artist and a human being that enabled us the possibility of accessing some aspect of the mystery of our existence.

Stepping beyond … his spirit has left his body.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Marcus Bunyan. “Exposing your/self,” on the exhibition ‘Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals’ at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, November 2014 – February 2015 on the Art Blart website January 30, 2015 [Online] Cited 11/06/2026

2/ Marcus Bunyan. “The things-for-which-there-are-no-words,” on the exhibition ‘Illusions of the Photographer: Duane Michals at the Morgan’ at The Morgan Library & Museum, October 2019 – February 2020 on the Art Blart website January 24, 2020 [Online] Cited 11/06/2026

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I write with this photograph not to tell you what you can see, rather to express what is invisible.”

Duane Michals 1966 in Johnson, B. (ed.,) 2004, ‘Photography speaks: 150 photographers on their art’, Aperture, New York p. 150

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026)
The Human Condition
1969
© Duane Michals via DC Moore Gallery
The Morgan Library & Museum

“The nature of consciousness is always the central question,” he asserted. In The Human Condition, his panel of six photographs from 1969 begins with a man standing on the 14th Street subway platform; the train arrives and he is bathed in a halo of light; the light becomes a swirl and in the last frame he is swept into a white disc the size of a galaxy passing through the night sky. From the immediate to the universal in six frames.

Philip Gefter. “Duane Michals Searches the Morgan and Finds Himself,” on The New York Times website Oct 29, 2019 [Online] Cited 14/11/2019

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026)
Things Are Queer
1973
Nine gelatin silver prints
Images: 5 × 7 inches (12.7 × 17.8cm) each
Gift of Duane Michals
The Morgan Library & Museum