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.”
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.)”
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 andis 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
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
“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
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.
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, 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 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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
In my humble opinion F.C. Gundlach is one of the greatest fashion photographers that has ever lived.
Formalism, style, charisma, minimalism, eloquence, use of colour, perspective, scale and pattern, inventiveness, beauty, presence.
While other fashion photographers over egg the solution, Gundlach is pure class. Magnificent!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS. A glorious portrait of a most beautiful woman, the actress Romy Schneider (see exhibitions A, B and C). Gundlach’s portrait Romy Schneider mit Kreuz (Romy Schneider with Cross) (1961, below) is the epitome of style and beauty … low depth of field, top lit, so that the neck disappears in shadow and the face floats in a sea of black, the light highlighting décolletage, smoothness of skin, cross, and the cut and sweep of the gown. Perfect.
Many thankx to Bucerius Kunst Forum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“A good fashion photographer must live in his time, must anticipate trends.”
From 8 May to 16 August 2026, you can explore over 200 exhibits – ranging from iconic magazine covers and unpublished black-and-white as well as colour shots to works by Gundlach’s role models, contemporaries and successors such as Richard Avedon, Erwin Blumenfeld, Regina Relang, Cindy Sherman and many others. In conversation with Gundlach’s own images, these pieces equally expose the love for the medium, mutual influences, societal discourses, and power dynamics. The exhibition is the first major presentation of Gundlach’s oeuvre since his death in 2021 and simultaneously celebrates his 100th birthday with special loans from the F.C. Gundlach Foundation.
As a fashion photographer from the 1950s onward, F.C. Gundlach helped shape the image of fashion and the related notions of trends, identity, and gender in both German and international magazines. At the same time, he forged creative networks between Paris, New York, and Tokyo. The exhibition demonstrates how Gundlach was constantly inspired to experiment with new stylistic forms, his curiosity about the global photographic discourse which in this way, set new standards for the visual culture of his era. Whether in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, or Berlin, his role as gallery owner, laboratory proprietor, and collector – as well as his commitment to supporting the emerging photography scene and nurturing new talents – was crucial in establishing a vibrant photographic culture that continues to resonate today. By presenting Gundlach’s multifaceted oeuvre, the show traces both the continuities and the ruptures in his personal trajectory and the broader photocultural developments of his time.
Alongside his celebrated, iconic photographs, the exhibition features previously unpublished fashion series, experimental works and recent discoveries from Gundlach’s own archive and that of his contemporaries. It reveals how deeply photography is interwoven with cultural and social developments and highlights the pioneering influence of Gundlach’s vision on today’s visual culture. By spotlighting defining phases of his life, the show offers fresh perspectives on his artistic legacy and on the emergence of the 20th-century photo-cultural scene.
The exhibition is organised by Bucerius Kunst Forum in collaboration with Stiftung F.C. Gundlach.
Text from the Bucerius Kunst Forum website
Installation view of the exhibition F.C. Gundlach. You’ll Never Watch Alone at Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, May – August, 2026 showing at left in the bottom image, Gundlach’s portrait Romy Schneider mit Kreuz (Romy Schneider with Cross) (1961, below) Photos: Ulrich Perrey
F.C. Gundlach. You’ll Never Watch Alone focuses on the impact of F.C. Gundlach (1926-2021) as a photographer, gallery owner, collector, entrepreneur and networker. The exhibition showcases his iconic colour photographs as well as unpublished black-and-white and colour shots, and works by his role models, contemporaries and successors. The exhibition is staged to mark the 100th anniversary of F.C. Gundlach’s birth as part of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026.
F.C. Gundlach became renowned for fashion photography taken around the globe. An influential photographer and leading figure in a fashion, art and culture network, he was closely involved in the production and reception of German fashion magazines. His many cover images not only shaped how fashion was staged and presented, but also the related social concepts of gender and identity.
Taking Gundlach’s work as a starting point, the exhibition investigates photography’s emergence as a visual culture, its associated milieu since the 1950s, and its impact on social trends and movements. As the show’s title implies, photography does not exist in a vacuum. Gundlach’s cooperations with others stretched from Paris to New York and Tokyo, connecting publishing, the photography industry, the gallery scene, and the museum world. They crucially shaped his ideas as a photographer, collector and supporter of this medium. His personal contacts constantly inspired him to experiment with new stylistic forms and, in this way, set new standards for others. His activities as a collector were similarly marked by the same curiosity and openness.
In showcasing Gundlach’s multifaceted oeuvre, the exhibition explores biographical continuities and fractures as well as photography’s social development as a visual medium. For instance, as a gallery and laboratory owner and a teacher in Hamburg and Berlin, Gundlach’s promotion of this medium lent a new visibility to new talents just as much as the discourse of photography itself. The exhibition seeks to locate F.C. Gundlach’s oeuvre in a comprehensive context and highlight his importance in developing photography in the contested space of commissioned works, art and technology.
Through his diverse activities, trips and dialogues with other actors in the field of photography, Gundlach decisively influenced the visual culture of his day. In turn, he was also shaped by social movements, political decisions and trends. In addressing such reciprocity, the exhibition not only examines photography’s inherent connection to cultural and social developments, but also illustrates how Gundlach’s landmark visions paved the way for decoding and understanding images in our own time.
Actively committed to Hamburg, the place he chose to live, he played a significant role in establishing a culture of photography in the city. His works and the collection, administered by the F.C.Gundlach Foundation, continue to have an impact today.
On display are 130 photographs by F.C. Gundlach and 70 works from his collection, which are placed in relation to one another, including works by Erwin Blumenfeld, Richard Avedon, Regina Relang, Cindy Sherman, and many others. The Foundation is the sole lender of works for this first major show of Gundlach’s oeuvre since his death in 2021. Although coinciding with the centenary of his birth, it is not intended as a retrospective. Instead, taking decisive stages in his life as exemplary offers new perspectives on his oeuvre and the scene around the culture of photography emerging in the 20th century. Apart from his famous, now iconic photographs, the exhibition is showing experimental works and new discoveries by Gundlach and the contemporaries influencing his artistic career.
“There is something so infectious and engaging about these photographs, something that draws you into the transformative freedom of African identities.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Curator: Oluremi C. Onabanjo, The Peter Schub Curator, with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography
Air Afrique DJIMA RECORDS 1969 Vinyl 45tour Mono 7 1/16 x 7 1/16″ (18 x 18cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
Of being and becoming
Why do I love African photography so much after the “winds of decolonial change” swept through the continent which “saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora.”
Firstly, I love the vibrancy present in photographs of everyday life – at the club, with friends, dancing, drinking. I love the hairstyles, I love the fabrics, I love the way people are proud of themselves and their cultural heritage. Joy, love, exuberance, passion. There is something so infectious and engaging about these photographs, something that draws you into the transformative freedom of African identities.
Secondly, I love the studio photographs that enable the sitter to dream the great dreams of life, to imagine who they want to be before the camera. Here, in a symbiotic relationship between the photographer and the sitter, the “studio becomes a kind of imaginative enterprise. You can go and be who you are, or you can go and be who you want to be.” In Sanlé Sory’s studio his “portraits made possible a particular process of being and becoming for his sitters. He reflected the ideas that they wanted to communicate – whether to friends, lovers, strangers, or themselves.” (Gallery label) The resulting portrait made the sitter feel connected to a cosmopolitan world. Both a world of dreams and aspirations and Africans’ lived experiences and realities.
Thirdly, I love how the photographer turns the camera towards himself, conceptually enacting in a staged theatricality of becoming, envisioning himself as different personalities through the act of constructing identities. Heroes, travellers, intellectuals, philosophers and, in Samuel Fosso’s case, prominent figures from 20th-century Pan-African liberation and American civil rights movements. African spirits and activists, intellectuals, and political leaders who fought for Black emancipation across the globe.
Pan-African modes of image-making after the end of colonisation open up, as curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo so eloquently states, “dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility” where everything is possible in every/body. There is no wringing of the hands here, no use of colonial photographs rehashed for contemporary consumption, just a joy, joy, joy in present and future becoming.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Museum of Modern Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Imagination is a Magic carpet Upon which we may soar To distant lands and climes And even go beyond the moon To any planet in the sky If we came from nowhere here Why can’t we go somewhere there?
. Sun Ra, “Imagination,” 1970
The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination showcases how photographic portraits fuel ideas of Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition considers the transatlantic call and response that constructed Africa as a political idea, due to the “winds of decolonial change” that swept the African continent in tandem with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Ideas of Africa is the third exhibition organised at The Museum of Modern Art in celebration of the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from prolific collector Jean Pigozzi. The exhibition features core works from this gift, alongside a selection of recent acquisitions and key loans.
Text from The Museum of Modern Art website
Air Afrique Balafon No. 1 1964 Magazine, softcover 10 5/8 x 8 1/4″ (27 x 21cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
From 1961 to 2002, Air Afrique served as the official transnational carrier for francophone West and Central Africa, providing regular jet service throughout the continent and internationally. The airline was also deeply committed to the production of Pan-African arts and culture. It funded vinyl records, published books on African history, and produced the in-flight magazine Balafon, which reported on events across Africa and beyond. Twenty years after the airline shuttered, a Paris-based artist collective formed to revitalise the spirit of Air Afrique through design collaborations, film programs, and a magazine. Their collection of archival ephemera, on view here, comprises gifts and purchases from former Air Afrique staff.
Inspired by the international activities of Air Afrique, both past and present, this reading table presents issues of the airline’s in-flight magazine, Balafon, one of which features a portrait of the Malian photographer Malick Sidibé on its cover. This table also includes a selection of photobooks, catalogues, and scholarly publications, celebrating the circulation of images and ideas in Africa during the decolonial era. These books are additionally available to browse within the gallery, offering further directions for reading, thinking, dreaming, and imagining.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Air Afrique Balafon No. 3 1965 Magazine, softcover 10 5/8 x 8 1/4″ (27 x 21cm) Air Afrique Collective, courtesy of Lamine Diaoune, Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam, Djiby Kebe, Jeremy Konko
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at right two Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008, below) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962) Untitled from the series African Spirits 2008 Gelatin silver print 64 1/8 x 48 1/16″ (162.8 x 122cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left photographs by Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001); and at right, two Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008, below) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962) Untitled from the series African Spirits 2008 Gelatin silver print 64 1/8 x 48 1/16″ (162.8 x 122cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Artist, Silvia Rosi:African Spirit is a series of self-portraits where Fosso transforms himself into key figures of the Pan-African liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s.
I’m Silvia Rosi. I’m an artist working with photography and moving image.
Samuel Fosso started his career taking portraits of people in the studio, where there was always this act of constructing identities through props, poses, and the photographer’s imagination. At the end of each workday, Fosso would turn the camera toward himself.
In this series, he recreates these iconic photographs, taking on the faces of Angela Davis, of Martin Luther King, while at the same time remaining himself. For me, there’s this sense of recognition but also his own presence makes us question what it means to embody these figures.
The lighting and the poses and the composition echo this studio portrait tradition, but there’s always an element of theatricality that keeps you aware of the labor of becoming someone else. He neutralises the scene, removing the backdrop, and we’re forced to look at the subject that we have in front.
Turning the camera inwards can be really revolutionary. I think that’s something that deeply resonates with me, this idea of being in charge of my own representation and giving yourself complexity through images.
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing five Untitled photographs from the series African Spirits (2008) by Samuel Fosso (French and Central African born Cameroon, b. 1962)
The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imaginationshowcases how photographic portraits fuel ideas of Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition considers the transatlantic call and response that constructed Africa as a political idea, due to the “winds of decolonial change” that swept the African continent in tandem with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Ideas of Africa is the third exhibition organised at The Museum of Modern Art in celebration of the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from prolific collector Jean Pigozzi. The exhibition features core works from this gift, alongside a selection of recent acquisitions and key loans. Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination is organised by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, The Peter Schub Curator, with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography.
Conceptually influenced by The Idea of Africa, a landmark publication by the late philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe (1941-2025), the exhibition brings together works by 20th-century photographers such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Jean Depara, Sanlé Sory, and Ambroise Ngaimoko, who worked across key urban centers in West and Central Africa during the “golden age of African portraiture.” Images by James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite illuminate Pan-African modes of image-making across the African diaspora. Works by contemporary artists of African descent, including Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, alongside ephemera selected from the archive of the artist collective Air Afrique, embody the physical circulation of these ideas across space and time.
“As we continue to witness transformative shifts in the global geopolitical order, it is instructive to revisit a moment in history that saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora. This exhibition locates dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility in images made by inventive photographers who registered and beckoned in new worlds,” says Oluremi C. Onabanjo.
Ideas of Africa features a reading room as a tribute to the aspirations of knowledge production and the proliferation of the photographic image in print media during the decolonial era. In the reading room, visitors can access a selection of historical and contemporary photobooks and publications.
On the occasion of the exhibition, MoMA is publishing a richly illustrated catalogue featuring a lead essay by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, contributions by poet Momtaza Mehri and film programmer Yasmina Price, and reproductions of key texts by Brent Hayes Edwards and V. Y. Mudimbe. 140 pages, 105 color illustrations. Hardcover, $50. ISBN: 978-1-63345-171-1.
Press release from The Museum of Modern Art
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left, Malick Sidibé Nuit de Noël (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] (1963, below); and at second left, Malick Sidibé Regardez-Moi [Look at Me!] (1962, below)
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Nuit de Noël (Happy Club) [Christmas Eve] 1963 (printed January 2006) Gelatin silver print Image: 39 x 39″ (99 x 99.1cm) Sheet: 47 1/4 x 47 1/4″ (120 x 120cm) Frame: 53 9/16 x 53 9/16″ (136 x 136cm) Courtesy The Walther Collection, New York / Neu-Ulm
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Regardez-Moi [Look at Me!] 1962 (printed January 2006) Gelatin silver print Image: 39 3/8 x 39″ (100 x 99cm) Sheet: 47 1/4 x 47 1/4″ (120 x 120cm) Frame: 52 3/16 x 52 3/16 x 1″ (132.5 x 132.5 x 2.5cm) Courtesy The Walther Collection, New York / Neu-Ulm
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936–2016) Boxeur (Boxer) 1966 Gelatin silver print Image: 16 15/16 x 16 15/16″ (43 x 43 cm) Frame: 27 9/16 x 27 9/16 x 9/16″ (70 x 70 x 1.5cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection
For Sidibé, the roving “eye of Bamako,” the city was his studio. Active during the 1960s and ’70s, Sidibé shot on 35mm film and often printed proofs of the exposures he took at weekend parties. He arranged them sequentially on pastel cardstock and displayed them at his studio so that clients might purchase souvenirs of their exploits. Sidibé’s images of youth culture emphatically pushed back against Mali’s normative state attitudes and expectations of decorum. Revelling in effusive gestures and strong poses, he deftly photographed a community full of elegance, style, and sensational flair that staked its claim on a connection to a global African Diaspora.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Nuit du 10 octobre 1970 (Night of October 10, 1970) 1970 Twenty-two gelatin silver prints mounted on paper 12 3/4 x 19 3/4″ (32.4 x 50.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Judith and Wm. Brian Little Fund
Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016) Untitled July 28, 1973 Twenty-four gelatin silver prints mounted on paper 12 3/4 x 19 3/4″ (32.4 x 50.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Judith and Wm. Brian Little Fund
“This wind of change blowing through Africa … is no ordinary wind,” wrote Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in 1963. “It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand.” In the 1960s, independence movements swept across the African continent, resulting in the disintegration of colonial territories. These transformative struggles coincided with an exhilarating campaign for civil rights in the United States, forging a transatlantic call-and-response that established “Africa” as a political idea.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines the role of portrait photography within this emerging sense of Pan-Africanism. It unites portraits by mid-century photographers from across West and Central Africa and works by contemporary artists of African descent, illuminating different modes of image making and forms of transnational solidarity. As the art historian Kobena Mercer has argued, “‘Africa’ has never been a static entity, confined to the boundaries of geography, but has always had a diasporic dimension.” Embedded within the exhibition is a reading room featuring a selection of photobooks, alongside archival ephemera from the Paris-based collective Air Afrique. Following in the wake of the eponymous international airline, the group has continued the circulation of Pan-African culture and ideas into the present day.
Conceptually influenced by the late philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe’s book The Idea of Africa (1994), in which he exposes Western views of Africa as politicised constructions, this exhibition demonstrates how African photographers grappled with Africa as a political idea in their own ways. Presenting subjects for whom the personal was undeniably political, their images assert photography’s unique potential to creatively reflect our surroundings and beckon new worlds. At a time when profound shifts are once again transforming the global geopolitical order, Ideas of Africa attests to the enduring relevance of these themes.
Gallery text from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left the work of Silvia Rosi (below); and at right, Njideka Akunyili Crosby And We Begin to Let Go (2013, below)
Silvia Rosi (Togolese and Italian, b. 1992) Disintegrata di profilo (Disintegrated in Profile) 2024 Inkjet print 31 1/2 x 31 1/2″ (80 x 80cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Carl Jacobs Fund
Rosi has said, “I’m not just performing, but reflecting on history.” Through photographic self-portraits, the artist examines personal, familial, and national narratives of migration, memory, and belonging. Deeply informed by the history of West African studio portraiture, Rosi’s images elegantly synthesise the formal strategies of mid-century African photographers, including many of those represented in this exhibition. Rosi often reenacts moments from her family’s past. Disintegrated Waiting, for instance, recalls when her mother first arrived in Italy from Togo. “She once said, ‘I used to be integrated, now I’m disintegrated,'” the artist shared. “To me this phrase is … an expression of the experience of diaspora.”
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Silvia Rosi (Togolese and Italian, b. 1992) Sposa italiana disintegrata (Disintegrated Italian Wife) 2024 Inkjet print 31 1/2 x 31 1/2″ (80 x 80cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Carl Jacobs Fund
Njideka Akunyili Crosby (Nigerian, born 1983) And We Begin to Let Go 2013 Acrylic, acetone transfers, charcoal, pastel, marble dust, and collage on paper Sheet: 84 x 105″ (213.4 x 266.7cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Promised gift of Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine Farley
Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby moved to the US at the age of 17 (after winning the green card lottery in her home town) to train as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and, later, Yale University. Here, as in many of her portraits, Crosby gives an intimate portrayal of her interracial marriage and day-to-day life in America. She combines photo-transfer processes with painting and collaged fabrics, fusing Nigerian and American materials, images, and cultural traditions.
In her practice, Akunyili Crosby meditates on familial life within a transcultural context. Her large-scale compositions of everyday domestic scenes synthesise drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography. And We Begin to Let Go depicts the artist and her husband, who leans over her shoulder. To make it, Akunyili Crosby drew from Nigerian print media publications and her family’s photographic archive. She united these images’ varied photographic textures through the same formal treatment: acetone transfer, a printmaking technique through which a printed image is transferred onto another surface using an acetone solvent. Images of smiling faces, elaborate coifs, and patterned clothing suffuse the picture plane, accruing on the surfaces this marital encounter.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Installation view of the exhibition Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, December 2025 – July 2026 showing at left, Njideka Akunyili Crosby And We Begin to Let Go (2013, above); and at centre, Kwame Brathwaite Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs) (1964-1968, below)
Kwame Brathwaite (American, 1938-2023) Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs) 1964-1968 Inkjet print, printed 2024 30 x 30″ (76.2 x 76.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Brathwaite, for whom photography functioned at the nexus of Black artistic, political, and cultural expression, rhythmically documented jazz scenes in Harlem and the Bronx. In 1956 he cofounded the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS) in the South Bronx, where he made structured portraits of the Grandassa Models, a group of women who were part of the Black Is Beautiful movement of the 1960s and ’70s. “Black Is Beautiful was my directive … It was a time when people were protesting injustices related to race, class, and human rights around the globe,” Brathwaite said. “I focused on perfecting my craft so that I could use my gift to inspire thought, relay ideas, and tell stories of our struggle, our work, our liberation. … Oppression still exists today, and we must keep fighting, keep on pushing until we are free.”
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Kwame Brathwaite (American, 1938-2023) Untitled (Nomsa with Earrings) 1964-1968 Inkjet print, printed 2024 15 x 15″ (38.1 x 38.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Felix Akinniran Olunloyo (Nigerian) Untitled c. 1950-1970 Gelatin silver print 5 1/2 x 3 9/16″ (13.9 x 9cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Felix Akinniran Olunloyo (Nigerian) Untitled c. 1950-1970 Gelatin silver print 5 1/2 x 3 9/16″ (13.9 x 9cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Oumar Ka (Senegalese, 1930-2020) Untitled (Two Women with Thatched Roof House) 1959-1968 Gelatin silver print, printed 2024 17 × 17″ (43.2 × 43.2 cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Bernard Lumpkin and Carmine Boccuzzi in honor of Darren Walker
Historian, Giulia Paoletti: Getting a portrait done was a serious business, because this single portrait would circulate and stand for this person.
My name is Giulia Paoletti, and I am a researcher on photography and modern art in Africa.
In 1959, Oumar Ka met a photographer who gave him a camera, so he learned by himself. Photography in Senegal was extremely popular. Dozens and dozens of studios existed. But he started going from village to village taking portraits, and then he would go home, develop the negatives, and return the following week with the prints. So, you meet his sitters by their own home, in towns, sometimes in this open landscape. And that is a major distinction from other photographers who worked in a studio.
In this photograph, we see two young women in matching outfits, posing for the camera against a white backdrop attached to this thatched-roof house. The landscape, the architecture, the sky – this is part of who they are and how they want to be perceived. They’re young, they’re serious, they’re confident.
As Senegal is shifting from a colonised place to an independent country, these are sitters that are making visible their experience of modernisation, which looked very different from the experience if someone lived in the capital city. There is often this tendency to flatten what is African modernity, and instead it’s important to show the variety of experiences and subjects at the time.
Sanlé Sory (Burkinabé, b. 1943) L’Intellectuel (The Intellectual) 1970-85 Gelatin silver print 8 1/8 x 8 1/8″ (20.6 x 20.6cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
“Everyone chooses what they want in photography,” Sory once said. First opening his studio, Volta Photo, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), in 1960, Sory organised bals poussières (or “dust balls,” named after the dirt clouds that dancers kicked up) in the fields of the nearby Kou Valley. The sound of his Multiblitz flash accompanied the percussion at parties, setting an elusive tone for his reportage de nuit (nighttime journalism). At Volta Photo, Sory’s portraits made possible a particular process of being and becoming for his sitters. He reflected the ideas that they wanted to communicate – whether to friends, lovers, strangers, or themselves.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Sanlé Sory (Burkinabé, b. 1943) Le Voyageur (The Traveller) 1970-1985 Gelatin silver print 8 1/8 x 8 1/8″ (20.6 x 20.6cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Committee on Photography Fund
Historian, Antawan I. Byrd: One of the fundamental principles of studio portraiture, especially as it developed in West Africa, is that the studio becomes a kind of imaginative enterprise. You can go and be who you are, or you can go and be who you want to be.
Hello, I’m Antawan I. Byrd. I am a curator, and my research focuses on photography in West Africa during the mid-20th century.
Sanlé Sory opened up his own photography studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, one of the major cities in present-day Burkina Faso. This is a time right after independence, in 1960, and so there is this sense of optimism and hope about the sovereign nation.
Sory once remarked, “Fun is central to my work.” I think he’s speaking about the dynamics of collaboration. Oftentimes, clients would line up outside of the studio, and Sory would have a sort of menu that they can choose from. They could point and say, “Sory, I’d like this portrait here, and I’d like to pose with that prop there.”
Here we’re looking at six portraits, and they’re assuming different personalities. There’s one figure who appears as the intellectual, reading a newspaper. Another figure standing powerfully with his hands in the air as if he’s a boxer. There’s another wielding a Air Afrique briefcase, suggesting that he is a traveller.
When we think about the studio as a kind of imaginative space, it’s possible that the figure with the briefcase has just come back from a trip. But it’s entirely possible that he’s never left Bobo-Dioulasso at all, and holding that briefcase is a way to signal his ambition to travel.
J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere (Nigerian, 1930-2014) Brush Eko Bridge 1973 Two gelatin silver prints Each 11 x 8″ (27.9 x 20.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
In 1968 Ojeikere embarked on a monumental project to document the myriad hairstyles worn by women across a newly independent Nigeria. Over the next seven years, he amassed more than one thousand photographs. Together, these rigorously composed images form a portrait of a nation undergoing social and physical transformation – with feminine beauty standards providing the ultimate symbol. In Brush Eko Bridge, clean lines appear across a woman’s carefully parted scalp, her hair threaded to sculptural effect. In profile her hairdo evokes the highways and architectural developments that were then populating the Lagos skyline.
Gallery label from Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
Historian, Antawan I. Byrd: The hairstyles project is often described as Ojeikere’s most ambitious body of work, and it’s a body of work that he pursued over nearly half a century.
My name’s Antawan Byrd. I’m an art historian and curator based in Chicago.
J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere evolved as a photographer alongside major political shifts in Nigerian history. 1960 is when the country attains independence from British rule. Ojeikere began to attend many of the festivals that were celebrating traditional culture. Hair design was coming back into fashion after a long period of being regarded as retrograde by the colonial government. It was at one of those festivals that he began to make his earliest images of Nigerian hairstyles.
He was so fascinated by the nuances of the designs as you encounter them from different angles. Some of the hair designs are straightforward cornrow styles, whereas others are realised through the use of thread that’s been wrapped around strands of hair.
Many of the hair designs carry references to contemporary bridges and buildings in terms of their architectural design. That’s in part because after independence, the nation is being built, the skyline is being built, the hairstyles are being built. And so I think for Ojeikere, he was conscious of the multiplicity of changes that were happening. It’s simultaneously about hair and the tradition of hair, and yet it’s also about architecture and commerce and trade.
James Barnor (Ghanaian, born 1929) Ever Young Studio, Accra c. 1954-1959 Gelatin silver print, printed 2018-20 9 1/2 x 9 1/2″ (24.1 x 24.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Acquired through the generosity of Heidi and Richard Rieger
Artist, James Barnor: Everything that happened in Accra passed through my street, and I call myself Lucky Jim. Anything that was happening, I was there.
I’m James Barnor. I was born on the 6th of June 1929. I had witnessed photography from a very small age because my mother’s brother was a professional photographer. My cousin was practicing in Accra, in Ghana. Because it was in the family, I must have thought, “Ah, this is something I could do in the future.”
Portraiture was number one. People are more important than places. I love people. ’53, I got a studio and I called it Ever Young. I thought about making people young, or even [laughs] better than they were before.
My sister was a nurse, and so I knew some nurses, and Evelyn was at the nursing training college. This is a portrait that I took of her. I had so many different backgrounds. And this was actually drawn on the wall. This is a sky. You can see the clouds. When I look at the different tones, from the white highlight to the black of the hair, it’s so very nice. This is a picture that I like very much.
I’m lucky to be alive and to be telling the story about my work. The inspiration that people get from my work will carry on and inspire others to develop their own way. The future is going to be grander because of photography.
James Barnor (Ghanaian, b. 1929) Portrait of Evelyn Abbew, Ever Young Studio, Accra c. 1954-1959 Gelatin silver print, printed 2018-2020 9 1/2 x 9 1/2″ (24.1 x 24.1cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Acquired through the generosity of Ruth Nordenbrook
Jean Depara (Congolese born Angola, 1928-1997) Un Jazzeur (Jazzman) 1960 Gelatin silver print, printed later 23 x 19″ (58.4 x 48.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Historian, Sandrine Colard: Depara’s images, when you look at them, you see mostly people partying at nighttime or in his studio. So you don’t directly see people articulating a political discourse, but their bodies are.
My name is Sandrine Colard, and I’m a historian of African art and photography.
Jean Depara was living in Léopoldville, which will become Kinshasa. It was the capital of the Belgian Congo, seen as a very modern city for Africa at that time.
This is a portrait of a Black man in a suit and tie. The way the arms of this man are folded upon themselves – he’s touching himself in a delicate way. Under a colonial system, Black men are seen as a workforce. Your body is to be put into service of colonial power, and so the very fact of dressing up, this delicate relationship to his own body – for pleasure, enjoyment, beauty – is just something that’s radically opposing the construction of Black masculinity in the colonial Congo.
The fact that it’s also entitled Jazzeur makes a connection with music. Jazz is a diasporic language throughout the world, and a musician is definitely not someone who is enlisted into the colonial economy. All of that together, I would say, is really a sort of different portrait being constructed for Congolese masculinity at that time.
Jean Depara (Congolese, born Angola, 1928-1997) Una Moziki c. 1960 Gelatin silver print, printed later 23 x 19″ (58.4 x 48.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Jean Depara (Congolese, born Angola, 1928-1997) Le Progrès (The Progress) 1975 Gelatin silver print, printed later 15 3/4 x 11 13/16″ (40 x 30cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled 1954 Gelatin silver print, printed later 46 15/16 x 65 7/8″ (119.2 x 167.3cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection. Gift of Jean Pigozzi
Introduction
Curator, Oluremi C. Onabanjo: I’m Oluremi Onabanjo. I’m the Peter Schub Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art.
This exhibition includes some of the most iconic image-makers working across cities in West and Central Africa, at a moment when the continent was transitioning from European colonial powers to independent nations run by Africans themselves. Within this context, people are really interested in what it means to be themselves. What are the dreams you have, the places you want to go? How do you see yourself? Photographic portraits are the perfect way to wrestle with these questions.
And that’s important for understanding the great Seydou Keïta, who was working in Bamako, in French Sudan, but which became, in 1960, an independent Mali. People who came to Keïta’s studio were interested in being seen as connected to a cosmopolitan world. Keïta was extremely proud of making people look beautiful. He used sunlight for all of his photographs. He had a number of props – watches, radios, rings – to gesture to their investment in this global imaginary that they are constructing with Keïta.
With this exhibition, I encourage you to really think about how a portrait is made. These are deliberately constructed compositions, and when we are attentive to those moves, we might see things anew.
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled (Bamako) 1956-1957 Gelatin silver print, printed 1997 15 9/16 x 22 1/8″ (39.5 x 56.2cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Family of Man Fund
Seydou Keïta (Malian, 1923-2001) Untitled 1956 Modern gelatin silver print Image: 22 3/8 x 15 11/16″ (56.8 x 39.8cm) Frame: 30 3/16 x 23 7/16″ (76.7 x 59.6cm) Sheet: 23 7/8 x 19 15/16″ (60.7 x 50.7cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination catalogue cover
” … 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 (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.”
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)
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
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 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.
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
“Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet…” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 30th January – 24th May, 2026
Curators: Quentin Bajac, in collaboration with Martin Parr and Clémentine de la Féronnière
“We are living in a time when, to borrow a phrase and book title of Sigmund Freud’s, civilization and its discontents are becoming painfully evident to us all. Our machine age technology with its private greed, ecologically disastrous policies, crass materialism, human alienation, incessant strife and conflict, and the portent of man’s destroying himself by his own recklessness, is taking its toll in terms of our confidence and optimism about life. …
John Anson Warner. “Introduction” to The Life & Art of the North American Indian. London: Hamlyn, 1975, p. 6.
A bewitching eye / the unfolding moment
A bewitching eye refers to eyes that are so powerfully, seductively attractive or charming that they appear to cast a spell, mesmerising or enchanting an onlooker. They possess an irresistible, magnetic allure that captivates the viewer, having an almost magical ability to draw someone in. This description could metaphorically be applied to the photographs of the legendary (and I don’t use that word lightly) contemporary British photographer Martin Parr (1952-2025).
Parr was an observer of life with a socially critical eye. Through his surreal, dream sequences captured in pop colour, punctum laden reality, Parr observed the absurdities of life on this planet – human, animal, inanimate – with curiosity and a sense of wonder even while questioning our path to destruction. While this exhibition is split into various sections – Leisure & waste lands; Last Chance To Buy; Small World; The Animal Kingdom; and Technological Addictions – in reality most of his images from each of the sections could fit into any other, for the whole world is interconnected in the excesses and grotesqueness of modern life, of civilization and its discontents.
Parr’s exploration of the pyschogeography of the urbanscape, the exploration of urban environments that emphasises interpersonal connections to places, is damming in its technicolor coat of glory. Mass tourism takes us to leisure spaces like the beach where technology is used to take selfies and mountains of waste pile up near the water’s edge. Mass human, mass cultivation (of palm oil or eucalyptus trees for example) is causing mass extinction of species across the planet. Mass consumption means that we are using the Earth’s resources indiscriminately to fuel (ha!) our desire for the latest, larger four-wheel drive we can get our hands on, the latest fashions that end up in landfill every 6 month cycle when they are not bought, or the brightest, pinkest, must luscious cup cakes you have ever seen in your life.
Parr’s colour saturated photos draw us into this consumptive world where the body is racked by disease, where the patient will soon be on life support. Through his mesmerising, enchanting, multilicious photographs he pokes a great big subversive stick at our follies, excesses, self-destructive desires. Unfortunately, while Parr’s photos seep into our subconscious, most images have little power to change public and personal opinion – all they can do is proffer alternate visions and interpretations of the world and hope that some glimmer of recognition of the environmental damage we are doing will permeate the mind of the viewer.
Of course, Parr’s famous photographs did not appear out of thin air. He was a dedicated photographer whose art practice required years of hard work, talent and skill to obtain his images. He emphasises that, “you have to look at the history of photography and learn what they have done and achieved and apply that, think about it and have it in the back of your head and then you can apply that to your own work.” By doing that, “you may have the rare opportunity actually to develop your own voice, and you can become a photographer with a particular voice.”
“What you are going to do, of course, is to find a good connection to the world out there. It is the quality of that connection that is really important. So, you find a subject you feel strongly about. Then work out how to articulate that and that hopefully will give you momentum for you to get good work.”
Nothing comes without hard work and perseverance.
In the video below where he is giving advice to young photographers he states that he might get only ten great photographs a year, sometimes only one, but he shoots heap of photographs and then discards the dross. What he also says that is really important is that he is attentive to the unfolding moment, he is aware and ready for what the energy of the world puts in front of his eye and his camera. If only the human race was so aware.
Parr was a human being that I would have really liked to have met. To have a conversation about the energy of the world, the passion and commitment of human beings to do good things, to see things differently, to make a difference.
We have his images for as long as the human race exists. But I miss him already.
Many thankx to Jeu de Paume for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“l’m creating entertainment, which has a serious message if you want to read into it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone – l’m just showing them what they think they may know already.”
Martin Parr, 2021
“We are heading towards catastrophe but we are all going there together. Who would dare ban cars or air travel?”
“When I take a photograph, I try to say something. Beyond the garish colours, there is a political message…”
Martin Parr
I now realise that almost all the images I have taken and produced are indirectly linked to climate change.”
Martin Parr 2009
“Global Warning gives us Parr in all his gluttonous, giddy glory, an attentive, unabashed and unpretentious observer of everyday absurdities. But through clever curatorial nudges, this show also gives us other unexpected sides to Parr, a creeping sense of a doom we are hurtling towards at breakneck speed.”
Martin Parr’s Advice to Young Photographers | Louisiana Channel
“You are probably going to fail, so unless you are obsessed, almost like a disease, you are not going to make it.” Legendary Martin Parr, regarded as the most crucial figure in contemporary British photography, offers advice to young photographers.
“What you are going to do, of course, is to find a good connection to the world out there. It is the quality of that connection that is really important. So, you find a subject you feel strongly about. Then work out how to articulate that and that hopefully will give you momentum for you to get good work.”
Another thing which is very important for Martin Parr to emphasise is that “you have to look at the history of photography and learn what they have done and achieved and apply that, think about it and have it in the back of your head and then you can apply that to your own work.” By doing that, “you may have the rare opportunity actually to develop your own voice, and you can become a photographer with a particular voice.”
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022
This exhibition revisits the work of the late British photographer Martin Parr, bringing together a selection of series produced since the 1970s that find new resonance in light of the growing disarray of the contemporary world. For over fifty years, Parr travelled the globe not as an activist but as a relentless and amused observer, offering a lucid and unsparing portrait of global imbalances and the excesses of contemporary life: the grotesque face and damaging effects of mass tourism, the rise of car culture, our dependence on technology, unbridled consumerism, and our ambivalent relationship with other living beings.
Through his characteristically offbeat vision, Parr also indirectly engaged with the human behaviours driving contemporary climate change: the unrestrained use of transport, reliance on fossil fuels, global overconsumption, and environ mental degradation. Over time, and as social attitudes have shifted, what once appeared merely entertaining has revealed itself to be increasingly serious. ln retrospect, Parr’s corrosive irony places him within a long tradition of British satire: his sharp wit and deadpan humour deliver a critical, and at times merciless, view of the world we inhabit.
Text from the Jeu de Paume website
The Martin Parr: Global Warning exhibition at the Jeu de Paume (on display through May 2026) is organised into five thematic sections. These sections explore the excesses of modern life through about 180 photographs.
Leisure & waste lands: Focuses on recreational spaces like crowded beaches where pleasure often leads to environmental degradation.
Last Chance To Buy: Examines unbridled consumerism in supermarkets, malls, and luxury shops using Parr’s signature saturated colours.
Small World: Documents the rituals and “ravages” of mass tourism across five continents.
The Animal Kingdom: Explores our ambivalent relationship with animals – as pets, entertainment, or consumer products.
Technological Addictions: Highlights our growing dependence on machines, from slot machines to compulsive selfie-taking
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Martin Parr’s black and white photographs of Ireland 1980-83 Photos: Salim Santa Lucia
Ireland 1980-1983
While living in Ireland, Martin Parr became interested in the abandoned morris Minors – the emblematic car of the post-war British middle classes – found throughout the Irish countryside. Through his lens, the vehicles become a new motif of contemporary ruin: modern vanities symbolising the inevitable decline of progress, a subtle criticism of pollution linked to the automotive industry, an homage to the beauty of Irish landscapes, an almost optimistic meditation on the resilience of nature, and a celebration of human ingenuity. In this sense, the series offers an implicit history of both pollution and adaptation.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left the wall text “Leisure & Waste Lands” and at centre, Martin Parr’s Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014, below)
Leisure & Waste Lands
Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr relentlessly documented how contemporary landscapes are periodically or permanently reshaped by the expansion of mass leisure. Many of these works capture the coexistence and constant intermingling of natural and man-made elements.
Parr’s photography explores the interests of ordinary people, with whom he identified. Although he never learned to swim – unlike his wife Susie, who is an excellent swimmer – he spent a great deal of time on beaches, which feature prominently in his work. His first major colour series, ‘The Last Resort’, focuses on the popular seaside resort, New Brighton, near Liverpool. Parr would go on to pursue this theme across all five continents, producing some of his most incisive social critiques, from ‘Benidorm’ – capturing life at a sprawling resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca – to ‘Playas’ – a survey of Latin America’s most frequented beaches.
‘You can read a lot about a country by looking at its beaches: across cultures, the beach is that rare public space in which all absurdities and quirky national behaviour can be found,’ he wrote in 2013. For Parr, the beach setting became a field of experimentation, rarely appearing in his work as exotic or pristine, but instead as spaces rife with the contradictions of the leisure industry. At once convivial and chaotic, beaches are places of relaxation, paradoxically crowded with bodies, colours and – on might even say – noise. They are sites where we reproduce our ordinary urban habits, and where consumerism is inextricably bound up with trash and waste in every imaginable form: a highly photogenic subject that Parr faithfully captured from the very beginning of his career.
‘I first came to Mar del Plata, the largest Argentine seaside resort, way back in 2007 when I was shooting images for my ‘Playas’ project, a survey of Latin American beaches. I was amazed then at the scale of the resort. It has two thousand hotels, sixteen kilometres of beaches, and welcomes over seven million visitors a year. In terms of scale, Mar del Plata dwarfs other well-known resorts across the globe, including Copacabana, Blackpool and benidorm, yet it is virtually unknown beyond Argentina.’
From Martin parr’s blog, Mar del Pata, 2004 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); and at second left, Benidorm, Spain (1997)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Tokyo, Japan (2000, below); at second left, Melbourne, Australia (2008); and at right, New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph New Brighton, United Kingdom (1983-85, below); at at right, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2014)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph Untitled (Hot Dog Stand), United Kingdom (1983-85, below) from Last Resort
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing from left to right, Benidorm, Spain (1997); Magaluf, Majorca, Spain (2003); Benidorm, Spain (1997); and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Benidorm, Spain (1997, below) and at right, Tenby, United Kingdom (2018)
This exhibition invites the public to revisit the work of Martin Parr. Through different bodies of work created from the late 1970s to the present day, Parr’s photographs capture the absurdities and malfunctions of our contemporary world. Over 50 years, in locations all round the globe, the photographer has built up a corpus of work that portrays the inequalities and excesses of our modern lifestyle. A number of themes recur throughout. These include: the ravages of tourism, the prevalence of car culture, our dependence on technology, consumer excess, and even our ambivalent relationship with the living world. Martin Parr brings his unique, off-beat perspective to several major causes of climate change and environmental damage: unchecked global travel, reliance on fossil fuels, and world-wide overconsumption. Seemingly light-hearted and humorous, Parr’s work is in fact deeply serious. The ironical nature of his work places Parr firmly within the traditions of British satire and offers an indirect yet profound critique of contemporary life.
Through some 180 images spanning fifty years of work – from his early black and white images to more recent output – this exhibition addresses the chaos of modern society. Five main sections, organised according to recurring themes, motifs and obsessions, convey the range and depth of Parr’s work. These sections explore the way in which our leisure pursuits impact the environment. Despite being a non-swimmer, Parr is repeatedly drawn to the beach as a site where the natural and artificial worlds coexist and pleasure leads to waste. In the section ‘Everything Must Go!’ our obsessive consumerism is explored. Parr draws up a crude inventory of sought-after objects and modes of consumption. Supermarkets, shopping malls, fairs and exhibitions provide the setting for a frantic materialistic race that is common to all classes of society. Sometimes even human beings become a form of merchandise.
In the ‘Small World’ section, named after one of his most celebrated series, Parr explores the joys, contradictions and dead ends of the tourism industry. In some of the world’s most iconic destinations, he focuses on the habits, behaviours, expectations and disappointments of the global tourist, against the backdrop of North/South, West/East imbalances. In ‘The Animal Kingdom’ he looks at the ambiguous relationship between humans and animals, from fascination and indulgence to neglect and exploitation. The final section – ‘Technological Addictions’ addresses our relationship with machines of all kinds: phones, cars, planes and computers as through them we navigate space, time and reality on a daily basis.
I create entertainment that contains a serious message if you are willing to look for it, but I’m not trying to convince anyone, I’m simply showing people what they think they know’ declared Martin Parr in 2021. Tireless photographer, frequent flyer, beach-lover, Martin Parr never tries to be a moral authority. He has often acknowledged that he himself is fully part of the world he documents and is clear-sighted about the environmental impact of his own lifestyle, particularly his significant carbon footprint: ‘We are heading towards catastrophe but we are all going there together. Who would dare ban cars or air travel?’
Aware that images alone are not enough to change the world, he advocates a form of discreet activism, a subtle visual guerilla warfare. If Parr uses humour it is always in the service of a commentary, often critical and satirical, that seeks to de-stabilise the idealised visions conveyed in the media by the cultural and tourism industries. Many of his images play with cliches, highlighting their inherent absurdity in order to subvert and deconstruct them. Tourist postcards, wildlife photography, foodie habits, selfies, all these and more provide the material that enables him to question, critique and occasionally mock the lifestyles and imagination of large sections of the world population. This exhibition is indeed a global warning.
Press release from Jeu de Paume
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Moscow (1992) ; and at right, the wall text to “Last chance to buy”
Last chance to buy
Beginning in the 1980s, Martin Parr began documenting a subject that relatively few photographers were exploring at the time: the myriad dimensions of consumer culture in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, and in particular the tastes, aspirations and attitudes of the middle class. Parr would sustain this interest throughout his career, later extending his investigation across Europe and the United Sates as well as to countries in Asia and the Middle East shaped by Westernised or Americanised lifestyles.
Today, Parr’s work offers a blunt and often humorous inventory of our consumer goods and ways of life – from food and art to luxury items and useless trinkets – framing consumption as a kind of new religion. In several series, parr deliberately subverted the visual vocabulary of advertising photography. In ‘Common Sense’, one of his most incisive critiques of consumer culture, close-ups and saturated colours produce a grotesque caricature of a world dominated by kitsch. Through his lens, supermarkets, hypermarkets, shopping malls, fairs, and trade shows become stages on which all social classes take part in a frenzied and absurd rush to accumulate goods of every kind. In this world, which seems ultimately to offer little pleasure, human beings themselves are at times turned into commodities.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at centre, photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999)
Installation views of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing photographs from Martin Parr’s series Common Sense (1999, below)
In his playfully titled Common sense series, British photographer Martin Parr confronts and amuses us in a similar way. Each image in the series is an isolated detail revealing one ghastly aspect of excessive consumerism and consumption after another. The images jostle for our attention like billboards on the side of a freeway, employing many of the tactics of advertising, using large-scale, saturated colour and shock value to attract our gaze.
In his photographs of food, Martin Parr pointedly examines the gross indulgence that is encouraged by manufacturers and their advertisers. Shown here as just another commodity, generic and mass-produced food becomes obscene in its abundance…. When seen in such lurid detail, the overblown details on the person’s hands, such as the ring with blue stone, a Band-Aid, and the imperfect application of the gaudy nail polish, become repulsive images of the ordinary. …
The Common sense series is a major body of work within Parr’s ongoing exploration of globalisation, mass tourism, class culture and consumerism. In common with much of his work, this series presents images critical of the contemporary culture with a distinctive sense of irony and British humour. There is something uncomfortable in all these photographs. We laugh at them while being slightly embarrassed by their familiarity and are acutely aware of the gulf between a dream of glamour and the sad synthetic reality.
Susan van Wyk, Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Victoria
Susan van Wyk. “Martin Parr’s Common Sense,” in Art Journal 46, 29 Jan 14 on the National Gallery of Victoria website [Online] Cited 16/04/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Cozumel, Mexico (2002, below); and at right, the wall text for “Small World”
Small World
Martin Parr maintained that he belonged fully to the world he documented and critiqued. He readily acknowledged the environmental impact of his own lifestyle – not least his substantial carbon footprint – and near positioned himself above his subjects. Although fully aware that images alone could never change the world, he nevertheless engaged in a form of subtle, visual guerrilla warfare that questioned dominant representations, particularly those promoted by the tourism industry.
Beginning in the 1990s, tourism emerged as one of his favourite subjects. He would explore it the world over, in all its pleasures, contradictions, and even dead ends, documenting the rituals and behaviours of the global tourist in the world’s most visited destinations. The sameness of gestures, attitudes and clothing encountered in every corner of the planet provides a humorous, slightly wistful counterpoint to the diversity of the sites and monuments photographed. Parr takes particular pleasure in overturning the codes of postcard perfect aesthetics, especially in his images of iconic landmarks, which he presents in degraded forms caught between over crowding, scenes of anxiety, and crude replicas. Through his lens, the quest for authenticity is a thing of the past.
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Parr’s photograph Cannes, France (2018, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photograph Sorrento, Italy (2014, below); and at right, The Matterhorn, Alps, Switzerland (1990)
‘Between the hours of 10am and 2pm the site is at its busiest with up to 4,000 visitors arriving each day. Knowing how inaccessible the place is, it is staggering where and how they emerge. It is also not a cheap visit as each foreign tourist has to pay 122 soies (roughly $40) to enter the site. I am convinced that this entrance payment, together with the cost of the journey and the trekking are probably keeping the Peruvian economy afloat, as 70% of all visitors are foreigners.’
From Martin Parr’s blog, Machu Picchu, 2008 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at bottom left, Martin Parr’s photograph Notre Dame, Paris, France (2012, below); and at right, Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland (1994, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s West Midlands Safari Park, United Kingdom (1990); and at right, Longleat Safari Park, United Kingdom (1994)
Unlike zoos, safari parks are designed to let animals roam freely, almost as if they were “in the wild”, while human visitors are meant to experience a sense of closeness to the animals natural state. In his images of safari parks, Martin Parr mocks this idea by deliberately including exactly what such photographs usually try to exclude: cars. The resulting images resemble absurd collages of two disjointed realities, in which – in typical Par-like fashion – he plays with the incongruous encounter between the natural world and a human-made, artificial dimension
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warming at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at second left, Martin Parr’s photograph Snow Polo World Cup, St Moritz, Switzerland (2011, below) from the series Luxury; and at second right, Venice Beach, California, USA (1998, below)
“I am not saying that tourism is bad – far from it as it brings a livelihood for many people. Organisations like Tourism Concern in the UK make a very important contribution to a better understanding of the yin and yang of tourism. This charity highlights the problems caused by tourism – from water shortages in newly developed sites to the pure rape of our ever decreasing natural habitats – and tries to ensure that local people benefit from the fruits of tourism. We need to adopt a better understanding of the issues surrounding this huge business. These photographs, I hope, will offer a good starting point. For remember we, in the wealthy West, are the ones that seek out the pleasures of tourism, so we’re all in this together.”
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing the wall text “Technological Addictions” with at bottom left, Martin Parr’s Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai, India (2018, below); at second right, Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below) and at right, New York, USA (1999, below)
Technological Addictions
Even in his exploration of technology, Parr remains a humanist in both his practice and overarching project: what interests him is our relationship to the technology rather than the object or machine itself. As a keen observer of behaviour and constantly on the lookout for unexplored for unexplored topics, Parr examined how the human body interacts differently with each new technological object. He also probes technology’s growing role in daily lives and imagination, and the dependency it engenders. At the same time, he implicitly explores the way technology profoundly alters our perception of reality and our relationship to space and time.
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below); and at top right, England, United Kingdom (1994) and at bottom right, England, United Kingdom (1994)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing Martin Parr’s Great Dorset Steam Fair, Dorset, England (2022, below)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s New York, USA (1999, below); and at right top, Salford, United Kingdom (1986) and right bottom, Dublin, Ireland (1986)
‘I was hanging around a petrol station like a pervert. Photographers at the time would have said that this was the craziest place to take a picture. Because it’s a very unglamorous subject matter. Boring. There’s no drama here. But there’s something really interesting about boring. Something that seems very ordinary at the time becomes interesting when you look back at it later, almost 40 years later: the pump has changed, the clothes have changed, the car has changed. It tells us something about consumerism, and how we depend on fuel, oil and petrol.
From Martin Parr’s interview, ‘”There’s something very interesting about boring” Martin Parr on his life in pictures.’ The Guardian, 24 August 2025 Wall text from the exhibition
‘Although many museums have now banned the selfie stick, outside in the street, especially in front of that iconic monument or landmark the stick comes into its own. Getting the photo of you and your loved one(s) with the landmark in the background is de rigueur. The tourism industry, which is the biggest in the world, now dictates that the first requirement of any trip is to prove you were there with the necessary photo. It connects you to the world that we know and understand, and it is a vital part of any successful holiday experience. We used to have to ask a passing tourist to take the photo, but thanks to the selfie stick those days are over and we are now self sufficient.’
From Martin Parr’s blog, The Selfie Stick, 2015 Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at left, Martin Parr’s photographs Advertisement for Sony PlayStation, England, United Kingdom (2003); and at right, Ooty, India (2018, above)
Installation view of the exhibition Martin Parr: Global Warning at Jeu de Paume, Paris, January – May, 2026 showing at right, Martin Parr’s photograph from The Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (2016, below)
Curators: Julien Faure-Conorton, head of research and scientific promotion of the collections, Albert-Kahn Museum and David-Sean Thomas, exhibition manager, Albert-Kahn Museum
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) L’église au soleil couchant, Ouidah, Dahomey (Bénin), 2 mai 1930 (The church at sunset, Ouidah, Dahomey (Benin), May 2, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Honneur et patrie (Honour and fatherland)
Another exhibition on an obscure topic that Art Blart likes to promote…
Of all things, I was watching an episode of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on streaming the other day and one of the Russian characters turns around and says, “Once a colony, always a colony.” As Dr Ama Biney cogently observes, “the past is not dead … it lives on in the present.” This is how she perceives the impact of history.1
The past leading the present.
Reading the history of Dahomey (now Benin) it’s the usual story of many European countries slicing and dicing the people, treasures and resources of a foreign kingdom.
“… the 1897 invasion of Benin contributed to the greater African holocaust enshrined in our experience of enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The brutal desecration of Benin lives and culture through the theft of over 4,000 of its artefacts by Western Europeans seems to be a known but yet untold story. It led to the demise of the Great Benin Kingdom, marking a most significant period in the continuing scramble for African resources. During the invasion the Oba (King) was deposed and deported to Calabar [Nigeria] on 13 September 1897 where he died 16 years later.”1
The photographs in this posting were taken in 1930 only 17 years after the exiled Oba died. The wounds would have been raw and open, probably still are.
While the first two photographs below are NOT in the exhibition, they are most pertinent for they inform all that follows, no matter what the Albert Kahn Museum – which promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples – likes to think.
“Proud and resigned, the ministers of Behanzin pose on the deck of the Mésange. As a reminder of the victory, the motto ‘Honneur et patrie’ (the motto of the French army) is displayed above their heads.”
Many thankx to the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“The term ‘post-colonial’ is used generally to describe all cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day. It is also considered as the most appropriate term for the new cross-cultural criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the discourse through which it is constituted.”
W.D Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989. p.2.
“I do not think people are used to seeing cultures that were labelled primitive as contemporary culture. This is primitivism in continued operation, in the inability to recognise these as photographs of people that are connected to contemporary culture. The blind spot is so large; it is devastating and it continues to affect First Nations peoples. The sensitivities and limitations around displaying the photographic evidence of the people who perished is tied up in this primitivist ideology.”
Brook Andrew speaking in interview in Brook Andrew and Jessica Neath. “Encounters with Legacy Images: Decolonising and Re-imagining Photographic Evidence from the Colonial Archive,” in History of Photography, 42:3, 2018, pp. 217-238.
The exile of King Behanzin in photographs
King Behanzin finally surrendered in January 1894 and was deported to Martinique with his family. This exile was immortalised by a few black and white photographs taken by a sailor on the schooner “La Mésange”.
Unknown photographer Behanzin and his family January 1894 SHD Vincennes
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS NOT IN THE EXHIBITION
Behanzin and his family
The exiled king remains dignified; he is surrounded by his relatives – women and a child. One of the women holds an umbrella to protect his head and another seems to be bringing him a drink. The looks are serious, but not overpowering. In the background are French soldiers wearing colonial helmets; on the left, ropes remind us that we are on a ship.
Unknown photographer Behanzin’s ministers January 1894 SHD Vincennes
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS NOT IN THE EXHIBITION
Behanzin’s ministers
Proud and resigned, the ministers of Behanzin pose on the deck of the Mésange. As a reminder of the victory, the motto ‘Honneur et patrie’ (the motto of the French army) is displayed above their heads. One of their jailers, a sailor armed with a rifle, poses with them, but curiously blurred by the light, he seems to fade away in front of the dignity of this government in exile.
This conquest was organised in three stages, punctuated by three military-scientific expeditions. The first expedition, which aimed essentially to defend the French trading posts on the coast, was entrusted to Commander Terrillon of the Troupes de Marine and took place from March to April 1890. It ended with the battle of Atchoupa, on 20 April 1890, and a French victory. A first peace treaty was signed on 3 October 1890, but it was not ratified by the Chamber of Deputies. The situation between the kingdom of Dahomey and France remained tense, with King Behanzin, hostile to French interference, opting for a policy of force and confrontation. A second expedition was organised from July to December 1892, preceded by a maritime blockade of the coast. This time it was no longer a question of defending the French establishments with a rapidly built-up force, but of leading an expedition into the heart of the kingdom of Dahomey, with the eventual establishment of a protectorate. The expedition was entrusted to Colonel Dodds. Starting from Cotonou and Porto Novo, the French column went up to Abomey, the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey, occupied on 17 November 1892. It was there that the now General Dodds had the royal objects seized and sent to France. He also proclaimed the deposition of King Behanzin, but did not manage to take him prisoner. This was the aim of the third expedition, from October 1894 to January 1895. It ended on 15 January with the proclamation of a new king of Dahomey, allied with France, then with the surrender of Behanzin, and finally with the proclamation of the French protectorate over Dahomey on 29 January 1895.
With Behanzin defeated, Upper Dahomey opened up to French penetration, with the Niger in its sights. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcassé, the aim was to keep the road to the Sudan and Niger open by establishing a French sphere of influence in Upper Dahomey. From 1894 to 1898, a series of missions made it possible to establish this French trusteeship, recognised by a series of conventions with Germany and the United Kingdom between 1897 and 1898.
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Joueurs de tambours royaux, Sakété, Dahomey (Bénin), 14 janvier 1930 (Royal drummers, Sakété, Dahomey (Benin), January 14, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Autel du vodún Djéholou, Adjarra, Dahomey (Bénin), 19 janvier 1930 (Vodun altar of Djéholou, Adjarra, Dahomey (Benin), January 19, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 9 x 12cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Village dans les collines, Dahomey (Bénin), 26 avril 1930 (Village in the Hills, Dahomey (Benin), April 26, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Soeurs et épouses du chef Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Sisters and wives of Chief Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930 Autochrome 12 x 9 cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
The Albert-Kahn Museum’s current exhibition, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 (Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930), offers a reinterpretation of the films and photographs produced during a mission to Dahomey (now Benin) led from January to May 1930 by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and camera operator Frédéric Gadmer for Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet. This immersion, meant as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the views on non-European cultures in a context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography.
Following on from a series of inaugural exhibitions dedicated to travel and gardens, the Albert-Kahn Museum continues to explore the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on perspectives on non-European cultures and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently added to the UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ Register.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several ways: it was the only foray by the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to Albert Kahn’s bankruptcy, and the result of an initiative by an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term endeavour to improve knowledge of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his project to document Dahomey’s cultural and religious practices, in line with the philanthropist’s humanist views.
One of the first film collections of French ethnography
Father Aupiais’s goal was to promote an ‘African recognitio’ by documenting the traditional culture of Dahomey, particularly royal ceremonies and vodun rituals, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 film reels under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Recently digitised in high definition (4K), these films constitute the narrative arc of the exhibition, which aims to present the outline, challenges, and legacy of this unusual mission, a century later. Projected in large format throughout an immersive journey, they offer unprecedented image quality and immerse visitors in the intimacy of Dahomey’s ceremonies and cults, forging links between yesterday’s protagonists and today’s visitors, between France and Benin.
Numerous objects, in a large part loaned by the musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, echo the still and moving images: emblems of power, vodun artifacts, and tools dedicated to divination are striking in their sophistication, matching the uses for which they were intended, documented in the films. These rare pieces also feature items exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.
Views from contemporary African artists
A Return Trip to Benin also questions the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the eyes of artists from the African continent. Serving as a perspective and critical counterpoint, artworks by Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, reappropriating and reactivating the photographs and films.
The Albert-Kahn Museum
Located in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, the Albert-Kahn Museum preserves and promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples. In addition to the collection of photographs and films in the Archives of the Planet, it features a four-hectare landscaped garden, the vegetal embodiment of its patron’s universalist dream.
An ambitious renovation completed in 2022 significantly increased the space dedicated to exhibitions, notably thanks to a new 2,300-square-meter building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, creating a dialogue between the image collections and the garden. The museum has welcomed more than 600,000 visitors since its reopening.
Press release from Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing a selection of black and white photographs by Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) (see below)
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing a selection of Automchromes by Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954)
Installation views of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing at left, Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Soeurs et épouses du chef Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Sisters and wives of Chief Justin Aho, Abomey, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930
Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930 offers a new interpretation of films and photographs produced during a Mission des Archives de la Planète, carried out by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and cameraman Frédéric Gadmer in Dahomey (present-day Benin) from January to May 1930. This immersive exhibition, shaped as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions how extra-European cultures were viewed in a context of colonial domination and the emergence of ethnography.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several aspects: it was the only foray by the Archives de la Planète into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to the bankruptcy of Kahn bank, it was the initiative of an atypical man of the church, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945), and lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 reels of film under Aupiais’s direction.
These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the most extensive collection of films in the Archives de la Planète and one of the earliest film collections of French ethnography, five years following the establishment of the Institut d’ethnologie de Paris and one year prior to the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Bénin aller-retour also interrogates the contemporary reception of the 1930 images through the perspective of artists from the African continent. The works of Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created especially for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, as reappropriations – and reactivations – of the photographs and films.
The Exhibition
A major exhibition for the 2025-2026 season at the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 offers a reinterpretation of films and photographs produced during an Archives of the Planet mission led by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and cameraman Frédéric Gadmer in Dahomey (present-day Benin) from January to May 1930. This immersive experience, in the form of a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the way non-European cultures were perceived within the context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography. Prior to the exhibition, fieldwork documentation missions were carried out in 2023-2024 by the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum in partnership with Beninese heritage experts, as part of a cooperation program between the Hauts-de-Seine Department and the Zou Community of Municipalities in Benin.
A Unique Mission of the Archives of the Planet
Following a reopening cycle dedicated to travel, and then an exhibition showcasing images of gardens, the Albert-Kahn departmental museum continues its exploration of the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on the perspective of the other and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
The 1930 mission to Dahomey is unique in several respects: the only incursion of the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last large-scale expedition before the project was halted due to the bankruptcy of the Kahn bank, it resulted from the initiative of an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term project for a better understanding of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his work documenting Dahomean cultural and religious practices, which naturally aligned with the philanthropist’s humanist project.
One of the first film collections of French ethnography
Father Aupiais’s aim was to contribute to an “African recognition” by documenting the evangelisation but especially the traditional culture of Dahomey, in particular the royal ceremonies and Vodun rites, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (colour photographs) and shot 140 reels of film, under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
Recently digitised in high definition (4K), these films form the central thread of the exhibition, which aims to present the unfolding, the stakes, and the legacy, a century later, of this unique mission. Projected in large format throughout an immersive experience, they offer unprecedented image quality and plunge visitors into the heart of Dahomean ceremonies and rituals, forging connections between the protagonists of the past and the public of today, between France and Benin.
Numerous objects, loaned notably by the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, resonate with the still and moving images: emblems of power, Vodun attributes, and divination tools are striking in their sophistication, reflecting the uses for which they were intended and which the films document. Among these rare pieces are some objects exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.
Artists’ Perspectives from the African Continent
A Benin Round Trip also explores the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the perspectives of artists from the African continent. Serving as contextualisation and critical counterpoints, the works of Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, blend painting, photography, installation, and performance, representing a reappropriation – and reactivation – of the photographs and films.
Throughout the exhibition, a genuine exchange of perspectives is fostered to construct new narratives that respect Beninese sensibilities and knowledge. This approach was made possible thanks to the numerous collaborations established with heritage experts in Benin, both within the framework of the project’s scientific committee and in that of two documentation missions carried out on site by the Albert-Kahn departmental museum in 2023-2024, thus continuing Albert Kahn’s program: “training to see, training to know.”
Exhibition design and layout
The exhibition offers an immersion in the images of 1930 through a modern and minimalist scenography, the juxtaposition of photographs and films with numerous objects and the spectacular presentation of the films in the form of large format projections.
Father Aupiais’s Dahomey
This introductory section presents the historical context as well as the figure of Francis Aupiais, the initiator of this Archives of the Planet mission, whose figure remains well known in Benin.
The Kingdom of Dahomey was founded in the 17th century by the Fon people, under the cultural influence of neighboring peoples and pre-existing city-states. Links were quickly forged with Europe, and the region saw the arrival of travellers, traders, and missionaries. The slave trade, established by Europeans to meet the demand of the Americas and the West Indies, exacerbated conflicts between kingdoms. The travel accounts published by Westerners at the time, riddled with inaccuracies and prejudices, revelled in describing the warlike and ferocious nature of the rulers of Dahomey. They also demonstrate a fascination with Vodun, a religion and animistic system of thought that they denigrate as “fetishism.”
In 1894, following a war against the King of Dahomey, Béhanzin, the country became a French colony: Dahomey. This conquest, which received considerable media attention in France, was still fresh in everyone’s minds when Francis Aupiais arrived there for the Society of African Missions.
Auguste Léon (French, 1857-1942) Portrait du révérend père Aupiais, Boulogne-sur-Seine, 9 août 1927 (Portrait of Reverend Father Aupiais, Boulogne-sur-Seine, August 9, 1927) 1927 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Francis Aupiais (1877-1945)
Ordained a priest of the Society of African Missions of Lyon in 1902, Francis Aupiais was sent to Dahomey the following year. There, he served as director of schools and later as superior of the mission in the capital, Porto-Novo. Like the Bishop of Dahomey, François Steinmetz (1868-1952), he sought to understand and promote Dahomean culture. To this end, he learned the language and researched its history, art, and customs from local authorities, particularly Vodun religious leaders.
This fraternal dialogue materialised within the journal La Reconnaissance africaine (1925-1927), to which the future writer Paul Hazoumé (1890-1980) contributed, as well as Thomas Mouléro (1888-1975) and Gabriel Kiti (1900-1948), the first two Dahomeans ordained priests.
Returning to France at the end of 1926, Father Aupiais undertook an intense propaganda campaign aimed at “rehabilitating Black people in the eyes of Europeans” and attended the Paris Institute of Ethnology in preparation for his most ambitious undertaking: a film mission to Dahomey.
The Aupiais-Gadmer Mission
This space presents the second protagonist of the adventure, Frédéric Gadmer, and provides visitors with insights into the 1930 mission (duration, route, topics covered, dual film corpus, etc.).
On January 1, 1930, Father Aupiais arrived in Cotonou accompanied by Frédéric Gadmer, an operator for the Archives of the Planet. For four and a half months, the two men traveled nearly 1,600 kilometers by train and car. Their itinerary focused on southern Dahomey: the Porto-Novo region, where Aupiais had lived for nearly twenty-five years, and the Abomey region, capital of the former kingdom of Dahomey. The pair also made a short stay in the north, in Natitingou, whose culture the missionary wished to document from a comparative perspective. Gadmer carried three devices with him: a camera for creating autochromes (colour slides) and two cameras with complementary capabilities, an ICA and a Debrie. In total, Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes representing 312 different subjects and shot 140 reels of film, representing a little over 10 kilometres of film, equivalent to 8 hours and 30 minutes of footage.
This constitutes the largest film corpus in the Archives of the Planet and one of the most ambitious ethnographic undertakings of the first half of the 20th century.
Aris Lachalarde (French, 1881-1964) Portrait de Frédéric Gadmer, Boulogne-sur-Seine (Portrait of Frédéric Gadmer, Boulogne-sur-Seine) Nd Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Frédéric Gadmer (1878-1954)
A professional photographer, Frédéric Gadmer was employed by the army during the First World War and undertook a long mission in Cameroon (1916-1918). In 1919, Albert Kahn (1860-1940) recruited this seasoned photographer for the Archives of the Planet. Gadmer became one of the most prolific photographers for the banker’s philanthropic project, distinguishing himself by his taste for distant horizons, from Syria to Canada, by way of Persia and Afghanistan.
He trained in filmmaking in 1924, thus acquiring a valuable dual skill set which contributed to his being chosen to accompany Father Aupiais to Dahomey in 1930. A reserved and rigorous man, Gadmer combined the humanist ambitions of the missionary with the documentary rigour of Jean Brunhes (1869-1930), scientific director of the Archives of the Planet, while also overcoming the technical difficulties of the field (high temperature, high humidity, etc.).
A Portrait of Dahomey
This third section, the largest in the exhibition, explores the three main themes addressed by the photographs and films of the mission.
~ Colonisation and Evangelisation
Given the circumstances, colonial influence and missionary activities are, of course, central to the corpus. This section notably presents Christian Dahomey, a missionary propaganda film conceived by Aupiais alongside his documentation of traditional Dahomean culture.
During their mission, Aupiais and Gadmer primarily documented three interconnected themes that sketch a rich and nuanced portrait of Dahomey at that time: colonisation and evangelisation, power and royalty, and finally, Vodun.
In 1930, the French presence was palpable everywhere, from newly constructed avenues to the lucrative palm oil trade. The role played by French Catholic missionaries is also described by Aupiais in Le Dahomey chrétien, a propaganda film extolling the benefits of evangelisation through education, healthcare, and agricultural production. This idealised vision however, it obscures a harsher reality: that of a population under colonial rule, often coerced by force. But the voices denouncing this situation and demanding a form of independence – which would be proclaimed in 1960 – remained a minority. An agent of colonisation, Aupiais was also a defender of the Dahomeans and their rights, notably speaking out against forced labour.
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Portrait du chef de canton Justin Aho, Dahomey (Bénin), 8 mars 1930 (Portrait of Chief Justin Aho, Dahomey (Benin), March 8, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
~ Power and Royalty
One of Aupiais’s main areas of study concerns the ceremonial surrounding the manifestations of power and royal ceremonies, particularly funeral rites, in Dahomean culture.
Aupiais’s interest in what he calls “ceremonialism” leads him to document everything related to Dahomean traditions and customs in order to reveal their beauty and sophistication. This is how Gadmer filmed numerous royal ceremonies, especially funeral rites.
Beyond protocol, the seats of power are also depicted, from the Honmè Palace in Porto-Novo to the famous royal palaces of Abomey. The prestige objects – royal staffs, parasols, palanquins – attest to a splendour that is also a tool for legitimising power, particularly for the canton chiefs, who owe their position to the colonial authorities.
The portraits painted by Gadmer are a perfect testimony to this. The claim to a historical heritage is further expressed through panegyrics that celebrate the genealogy and exploits of the ancient kings whose power is linked to the divine. Royalty, colonisation, and Vodun are thus intimately linked.
~ Vodun
This section explores how Aupiais documented Vodun ceremonies, not to denigrate them, but rather to demonstrate the respectability of this religion, which is, more broadly, a way of thinking.
A system of thought and an animistic religion, Vodun embodies a worldview in which the elements of nature (earth, thunder, water, etc.) serve as intermediaries between humans and a higher spiritual entity. Initiates, both men and women, are responsible for their worship: these are the vodunsi, the “wives of Vodun.”
Through its complexity and richness, and the refinement of its ceremonies and associated dances, Vodun perfectly aligns with Aupiais’s interest in “ceremonialism.” The missionary saw this as proof of the high spiritual value of the Dahomeans, which, according to him, predisposed them to convert to Catholicism. His privileged relationships with religious leaders gave him access to rare ceremonies, never before filmed.
These scenes offer a unique glimpse into the vitality of Vodun in 1930, a vitality that continues to this day. Among the subjects filmed, prayers to ancestors and the divinatory art of Fa received particular attention.
The Making of Films
This fourth section offers a different perspective, examining the behind-the-scenes aspects of the mission and what it entailed to make a film in 1930 for the Archives of the Planet. The question of staging is also addressed and explained, as well as the context of the birth of ethnographic cinema.
The Dahomey mission is by far the best documented in the Archives of the Planet thanks to the shooting diary kept by Gadmer. This exceptional document not only provides us with very precise information about the content of the 140 reels shot by the cameraman using his two cameras, but it also offers valuable insights into his filming methods, the conditions on location, and the technical difficulties encountered.
The recent digitisation of the original reels in high definition has been a true revelation: it has allowed for a reassessment of the scope and ethnographic value of these films and a rediscovery of the formal beauty of the shots filmed by Gadmer. Previously unseen images have also emerged, in particular shot marks, “ghost” portraits of rare power, which bear witness to both an era in the history of cinema and the dignity of a population under colonial rule.
Comparison with other contemporary ethnographic works – particularly the films of the American anthropologists Melville and Frances Herskovits – while underlining the unique character of the images produced by Aupiais and Gadmer, also reveals some of their limitations.
Finally, the exhibition concludes with a look at the dissemination of these images upon the mission’s return and their legacy to the present day. Topics covered include the 1931 Vincennes Colonial Exhibition, Father Aupiais’ lectures, as well as the work carried out on this collection since 1945 and the contemporary reinterpretations proposed by artists from the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg.
Upon returning from the mission, Aupiais disseminated its findings. On October 24, 1930, an exhibition of Dahomean art was inaugurated by the Minister of Colonies at the headquarters of the Kahn Foundations’ general secretariat (a few meters from the current museum). Aupiais presented pieces from the collection he had assembled to reveal the cultural richness of Dahomey to the French. At the same time, he provided commentary on the films shot by Gadmer under his direction.
In 1931, the Vincennes Colonial Exhibition provided an opportunity to showcase the images brought back from the mission, but also, for Albert Kahn, to host the members of the Dahomey delegation at his estate. Soon ordered by his superiors to cease his “melanophile propaganda,” Aupiais would not return to these films until years later, dedicating lectures to them until his death in 1945. Since then, this collection has been a constant subject of study.
Today, it is at the heart of a dual collaborative approach: documentary, with two field missions to meet with Beninese experts, and artistic, by inviting prominent figures from the African continent to reclaim and reactivate this shared century-old heritage.
Text from the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn website
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Vodúnon exécutant la danse de Hèviosso, Oumbégamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 17 février 1930 (Vodun performing the dance of Heviosso, Oumbégamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 17, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Vodúnon exécutant la danse de Hèviosso, Oumbégamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 17 février 1930 (Vodun performing the dance of Heviosso, Oumbégamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 17, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Marque du plan No. 380, Djimé (environs d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 26 mars 1930 (Mark of plan No. 380, Djimé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), March 26, 1930) 1930 Still image from the reel “Various Scenes” 35mm nitrate film
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Cérémonie de purifi cation de deux vodúnsi, Agbankamé (près d’Abomey), Dahomey (Bénin), 18 février 1930 (Purification ceremony of two vodunsi, Agbankamé (near Abomey), Dahomey (Benin), February 18, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 3” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Consécration de quatre vodúnsi dans un couvent, Covè, Dahomey (Bénin), 11 mars 1930 (Consecration of four vodunsi in a convent, Covè, Dahomey (Benin), March 11, 1930) 1930 Frame taken from the reel “Fetishism 1” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Consultation du Fa par le bokonon, Banhito (près de Porto-Novo), Dahomey (Bénin), 12 avril 1930 (Consultation of the Fa oracle by the bokonon, Banhito (near Porto-Novo), Dahomey (Benin), April 12, 1930) 1930 Frame extracted from the reel “Dances, Funeral of a King” 35mm nitrate film (negative)
The contemporary journey
The curators chose to give prominence to contemporary art by inviting several African artists, particularly from Benin, to enrich the perspective on this shared heritage that is the Archives of the Planet.
This dialogue between past and present is materialised through paintings, photographs, performances, sound creations, and installations, through which the artists appropriate the exhibition’s theme by offering a counterpoint to the historical narrative.
Among the works on display, five were directly inspired by the autochromes and films of the 1930 mission, three of which were commissioned specifically for the exhibition.
Roméo Mivekannin (Ivory Coast, b. 1986) La Mère Mélanie et deux épouses de Glélé, palais royaux d’Abomey (Mother Melanie and two wives of Glélé, royal palaces of Abomey) 2021 Painting, elixir bath, pigments and binders on canvas 255 x 264cm Courtesy Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Paris
Roméo Mivekannin
The work of Roméo Mivekannin (born in 1986) revisits Western representations of Black bodies. In his paintings and sculptures, the artist appropriates testimonies from the colonial past (paintings, photographs) to subvert their meaning, for example, by inserting his self-portrait into Frédéric Gadmer’s autochromes, which depict the figures involved in the evangelisation of Dahomey.
Commissioned for the exhibition thanks to the support of the Friends of the Albert-Kahn Museum, his work, entitled Adangba, takes the form of an imposing parasol decorated with royal motifs, inspired by the autochromes and films of the 1930 mission. It overlooks the central section of the exhibition dedicated to Beninese cultural heritage.
Angelo Moustapha
Voted best percussionist in Africa in 2017, Angelo Moustapha (born in 1993) weaves together the traditional sounds of his native Benin with innovative artistic currents, such as modern jazz. Ibilè, which means “origin” or “identity” in Yoruba, is a musical creation conceived specifically for the exhibition. Angelo Moustapha composed it, drawing inspiration from the rhythms visible in scenes filmed in 1930. It is not an attempt to recreate the original sound of these silent films, but rather an invitation to take a fresh look at these archival images.
Bronwyn Lace (b. 1980) Bronwyn Lace dans le Pepper’s Ghost, SO Academy, Johannesburg, 12 mai 2023 (Bronwyn Lace at Pepper’s Ghost, SO Academy, Johannesburg, May 12, 2023) 2023 Digital photograph by Zivanai Matangi The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg
Bronwyn Lace
Co-founder with William Kentridge of the Centre for the Less Good Idea, an unconventional artistic creation space based in Johannesburg, Bronwyn Lace (born in 1980) has collaborated with the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum since 2022. Her performance, Amazing Grapes, is inspired by the films of Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer, which she overlays with her own childhood memories in South Africa. It has been specially adapted for the exhibition to be presented in a miniature “Pepper’s Ghost” (a theatrical optical illusion device).
Frédéric Gadmer (French, 1878-1954) Portait du chef de canton Zodéougan, Zado, Dahomey (Bénin), 28 février 1930 (Portrait of Chief Zodéougan, Zado, Dahomey (Benin), February 28, 1930) 1930 Autochrome Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
Thulani Chauke
South African dancer, choreographer, and performer, Thulani Chauke regularly collaborates with William Kentridge and the Centre for the Less Good Idea. Fascinated by one of the autochromes from the 1930 mission – the portrait of canton chief Zodéougan – he has created a work that highlights the performative dimension of colonial archives and raises questions about how we see ourselves and others: Finding the Dahomean Prince (2025).
Installation view of the exhibition A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 at Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Paris, October 2025 – June 2026 showing the work of Ishola Akpo with at left, Trace d’une reine I (2020, below); and at right, Iyami (2021, below)
Ishola Akpo
Ishola Akpo (born in 1983) brings forgotten African narratives to light by creating composite works that engage in a dialogue between personal and collective memory. In the series Traces of a Queen from his AGBARA Women project, the Beninese artist combines contemporary photography, historical iconography, and embroidery to bring back from oblivion major female figures in African history, such as Queen Tassi Hangbé, long erased from the royal genealogies of Dahomey.
Ishola Akpo (Benin, b. 1983) Trace d’une reine I 2020 Traces of a Queen series, AGBARA Women project Collage and sewing on paper, cotton thread, 44 x 37.5cm Zinsou Collection, Ouidah
Ishola Akpo (Benin, b. 1983) Iyami 2021
Noticing the lack of archives on the queens of various African kingdoms, artist Ishola Akpo created several series of works that retrace their history, using different mediums as a metaphor for the complex stories of the figures and their true political weight. Among them, the Agbara Women photographic series creates fictional portraits that shed light on the queens’ histories. Each portrait’s elements trace Akpo’s Yoruba/Nago culture and its traditions, the photos and illustrations of the Zinsou Foundation Archives on Dahomey, and the artist’s travels and books. For example, Iyami is a portrait of a regal-looking older woman, seated and swathed in crisp white cloth, adorned with a red beaded crown and various pieces of gold and silver jewellery. The woman clasps a wooden staff; the solemn authority of this gesture is underscored by her stoic expression. The title of the work means mother in the West African language Yoruba, and the portrait sitter is the artist’s actual mother. Through this fictionalised photograph, Akpo creates a space for a relationship between the “little stories” of contemporary women embodying “great women”. More than just an ode to the power of women, the series questions the amnesic and patriarchal dimensions of African history, embodied by portraits of known and forgotten queens.
Text from the KADIST website Nd [Online] Cited 13/05/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Sènami Donoumassou (Benin, b. 1991) Ahantun dagbanu (series Akɔ mla mla) 2022 Silver gelatin print on baryta paper, accompanied by sound recordings 61 x 50.8 cm Artist’s personal collection
Sènami Donoumassou
A Beninese visual artist, Sènami Donoumassou (born in 1991) uses various modes of expression to explore the notions of identity, heritage, and history: videos, installations, photograms, and drawings. The works in her series Akɔ mla mla (“Panegyrics”), as well as her installation Ðɛgbè (“Prayer”), which examines the notion of religious syncretism, perfectly echo the images collected by Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer in 1930, bearing witness to the richness and perpetuation of traditional culture in Benin.
Georges Chevalier (French, 1882-1967) Art dahoméen: masque Gèlèdè aux serpents géminés, Orléans, 14 décembre 1927 (Dahomean art: Gelede mask with twin serpents, Orléans, December 14, 1927) 1927 Autochrome 12 x 9cm Archives de la Planète, Musée départemental Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine
A heritage in images and objects
The autochromes and films made in Dahomey by Frédéric Gadmer under the direction of Father Aupiais document many aspects of the country’s cultural heritage, particularly royal, religious, and funerary ceremonies. These images constitute a precious testimony of what Aupiais called “ceremonialism.”
In the exhibition, the various concepts involved are explained through educational texts intended for both adults and young audiences (for whom a family tour is dedicated). The curators have also selected emblematic heritage objects, similar to those seen in the films and photographs, in order to allow visitors to better understand their materiality, function, and use.
In total, nearly thirty objects (tapestries, seats, statuettes, royal staffs, gourds, etc.) are on display thanks to the support of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, as well as the collaboration of the Carrefour des cultures africaines in Lyon, the Muséum de Toulouse, and private collections. Among this collection of objects are pieces gathered by Father Aupiais himself and exhibited in France as early as 1927 to demonstrate to Europeans the richness of Dahomean culture.
Melville (1895-1963) and Frances (Shapiro) Herskovits (1897-1972) were pioneering American anthropologists who revolutionised African and African Diaspora studies. Working as a team from the late 1920s through the 1940s, they conducted field research in West Africa, South America, and the Caribbean, focusing on cultural continuities from Africa in Black communities.
An ethnographic mission?
The exhibition also situates this mission of the Archives of the Planet within the context of the emergence of ethnography as a discipline in France. Upon his return to France at the end of 1926, Father Aupiais attended lectures by Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) and associated with Paul Rivet (1876-1956) and Maurice Lévy-Bruhl, who, along with Mauss, founded the Institute of Ethnology in Paris in 1925.
This new scientific discipline significantly influenced the organization of the mission funded by Albert Kahn and can thus be compared to other similar undertakings carried out in the following years, such as the Dakar-Djibouti mission (1931-1933). A striking parallel also exists abroad with the work of the American anthropologists Melville and Frances Herskovits, who traveled extensively through Dahomey less than a year after Father Aupiais and Frédéric Gadmer. For the first time in France, the exhibition presents their filmed and audio recordings, which allow for a better understanding of the images collected by Aupiais and Gadmer.
Shared perspectives and international cooperation
The preparation of the exhibition involved numerous collaborations with heritage experts in Benin, both within the scientific committee and the project team, as well as during the two fact-finding missions conducted on-site by the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum in 2023 and 2024. These field missions were carried out with the support of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs as part of the cooperation program between the Hauts-de-Seine Department and the Zou Community of Municipalities in Benin.
The Department launched its international cooperation program with Benin in 2017 as part of its international solidarity policy, with the main objectives being the fight against food insecurity among vulnerable populations, securing the incomes of small-scale producers, developing market-connected agricultural entrepreneurship, and promoting sustainable development and positive action through agroecology. This initiative notably led to the deployment of an agricultural development program in the Zou region. To continue the work begun, the program was renewed in 2022 for a period of four years. Its objective: to strengthen family farming and support households and social entrepreneurs in rural and peri-urban areas.
This cooperation also includes a cultural component, integrated into the agreement in 2022, which has grown in scope over recent years, thanks to the involvement of the Zou inter-municipal council in hosting documentary missions in preparation for the exhibition. This cultural component enabled the organization, in November-December 2023 in Abomey, of an exhibition entitled “The Zou, from Yesterday to Today: Intersecting Perspectives,” combining images from 1930 and the present day. Public conferences and screenings were also held, notably in Covè in 2024 where the films of Frédéric Gadmer and Francis Aupiais were screened on the very sites where they had been filmed.
Finally, the “Dahomey” collection from the Albert-Kahn Departmental Museum was presented in 2023 at the School of African Heritage (Porto-Novo) and in 2024 at the Zinsou Foundation (Cotonou), anticipating a desired tour of the exhibition in Benin – currently under study – as well as possible partnerships with future Beninese museums, in particular the International Vodun Museum in Porto-Novo and the Museum of the Kings and Amazons of Dahomey in Abomey.
Text from the Musée départemental Albert-Kahn website
A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey in 1930 exhibition poster
Musée départemental Albert-Kahn Albert-Kahn Museum 2 rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays) 11am – 6pm
“Evans took photographs worth taking – unadorned, clearly seen, focused, descriptive photographs (of ordinary things) of the utmost beauty and honesty.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
In the medium of photography the work of the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975) is rightly exalted, subject to the highest praise. “His work directly inspired photographers like Robert Frank, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Bernd and Hilla Becher.” Some of the most important photographers of the 20th century.
In the near 18 year history of Art Blart his importance can be gauged by the number of exhibition postings he has accumulated over the journey, this being the 8th posting on the artist, joining a select few at the top of the tree: Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol.
I have written extensively on Evans’s work in previous postings links to which can be found below. Suffice to say that, through awareness, his personal journey of conscious choice and deliberate self-creation has led to his photographs entering the American vernacular – through a direct pointing to a photographic reality that reflects the time in which they were taken. Which transcend the time in which they were taken.
Evans took photographs worth taking – unadorned, clearly seen, focused, descriptive photographs (of ordinary things) of the utmost beauty and honesty. He was a passionate photographer. You can feel that passion in his images. Today with a world full of AI images, fragmentation, and conceptual hoo-hah, it might do us all well to ponder the stare of this great artist so that we, in our own way, can die knowing something.
To transform your own destiny into awareness!
“When I first looked at Walker Evans’ photographs, I thought of something Malraux wrote: ‘To transform destiny into awareness.’ One is embarrassed to want so much for oneself. But, how else are you going to justify your failure and your effort?” ~ Robert Frank
Many thankx to Fundación Mapfre for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“I was a passionate photographer and, for a time, I carried a certain feeling of guilt. I thought photography was replacing something else: writing. I wanted to write. But I felt deeply committed to everything that could come out of a camera, and I became a compulsive photographer. I was responding to a genuine impulse.”
“Stare. It is the way to educate the eye, and something more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”
Walker Evans
“Walker Evans is serious and smart and purposeful. He is trying to show you very clearly what he is seeing. It is very unadorned, as if nobody had taken the photograph. He conveys what is in front of him as clearly as possible.”
Interview with Chris Killip about his exhibition Work at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Renia Sofia, October 2013 [Online] Cited 11/02/2021
”Good clothes and good conversation, wit and erudition, originality and inventiveness, the charms of smart and pretty women – Walker took pleasure in being alive… He photographed objects as if they were people and people as if they were souls. All the while, he never forgot Blind Joe Death. The annihilations of the First War, the extinctions of the epidemic that followed it, the pyres and the pits – these he never forgot. The still silence of his images was, to the very last, transcendental, and always he remembered the skull beneath the skin.”
Michael Levy. Walker Evans: Last Photographs & Life Stories. New York: Blast Books, 2022
Walker Evans. Now and Then offers a renewed look at the career of one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. In a broad anthology bringing together images made over more than fifty years, the exhibition invites viewers to rediscover the direct, restrained, and analytical gaze with which Evans documented everyday life in the United States. Far from the theatrical, the artist championed precise and honest photography, always attentive to the cultural and social context.
The exhibition is structured around several essential threads of his work: his interest in the signs of the city (shop signs, storefronts, billboards, etc.), through which Evans captured a compelling reflection of the collective identity of his era; anonymous individuals (pedestrians, subway riders, workers), whom he portrayed with a spontaneity that blends formal precision and deep respect for his subjects; and his fascination with modest environments and small towns, where he found an authenticity that large cities tended to obscure. Alongside these major axes of his oeuvre, the exhibition also presents his late experiments with the Polaroid camera, which reveal a more intimate shift without losing the clarity of his vision.
The photographer Walker Evans (St. Louis, Missouri, 1903 – New Haven, Connecticut, 1975) is an essential figure of modern photography and one of the great visual chroniclers of the United States during the twentieth‑century. His images, seemingly simple yet profoundly complex, lucidly portray everyday life, urban landscapes, and the anonymous faces of a country in transformation. Rooted in the documentary style, Evans combined a direct, austere gaze with an inexhaustible curiosity for the signs of popular culture, which led him to define an era even as he questioned it.
Walker Evans began his work in photography in the 1920s, after a stay in Paris; and over the course of his extensive career, which spanned more than fifty years, he produced some of the most recognized photographs in the medium. He explored a wide range of subjects, from street snapshots taken surreptitiously to meticulous and precise architectural studies, although his best‑known photographs remain those he made in the American South beginning in the 1930s. Evans also embraced new artistic and technical developments, and toward the end of his life he explored the possibilities offered by the Polaroid camera. What unified his entire body of work was a deep interest in and affection for the appearance and essence of everyday life in a society increasingly obsessed with the new and the immediate.
Evans remains, even today, one of the most important and influential photographers of the twentieth century. With a style that is both simple and analytical, his deeply careful way of photographing, resulting in elegant compositions that are free of rigidity, has attracted countless followers. In addition to being an extraordinary photographer, Evans was also an editor, writer, and designer, and he took great care in how his work reached the public through magazines, books, and exhibitions, personally involving himself in the process.
In 2009 Fundación Mapfre launched its photography program with a retrospective dedicated to Walker Evans. Seventeen years later, the institution is pleased to present a new exhibition curated by David Campany, creative director of the International Center of Photography in New York. The show offers an extensive review of his work and of his lasting influence on generations of artists. It brings together key photographs and projects spanning his entire career – from his self‑portraits of the 1920s to his Polaroid experiments in the 1970s – alongside books and publications that reflect his inexhaustible capacity for observation. Through these works, the exhibition reveals a creator who not only documented the world around him, but also invited viewers to question the role of photography.
Key Themes
Signs of the city
Walker Evans stood out for deliberately and systematically incorporating all kinds of urban signage into his photographs – from sophisticated commercial signs to handmade notices, billboards, and shop windows – unlike other photographers of his generation, who often excluded them in pursuit of a supposed aesthetic purity. Evans believed these signs were reflections of society and its values; in this sense, his work resonates with artistic movements such as Pop Art and Postmodernism. His images of signs not only explore the relationship between word and image, but also question the role of photography as art, document, and commercial tool, underscoring the need for dialogue between photography and popular culture.
Anonymous people, anonymous places
Walker Evans showed no interest in portraying celebrities; on the contrary, he was always drawn to the anonymous individuals he encountered on the street or in the subway. He created portraits with a lightweight camera, privileging the spontaneity of isolated figures, crowds, beach scenes, or laborers at work. In this way, the simplicity of what he believed photography should be was reflected in the subjects he chose: a detached, direct, and unadorned kind of photography with carefully composed images that were nonetheless profoundly lyrical.
Tradition and the urban
One of Walker Evans’s core convictions was that the true character of any society was revealed more clearly in small towns than in large cities, which tended to blur individual particularities and traits. This emphasis on the popular and the vernacular set against the standardisation produced by major industries in big cities and metropolitan centers lies at the heart of American culture. Some of Evans’s finest and most celebrated photographs emerged from this belief, resulting in images of small‑town train stations and railcars, wooden buildings, traditional grocery stores and gas stations, as well as quintessential objects such as old pliers, rocking chairs, and fire hydrants.
Walker Evans information and keys from Fundación Mapfre
Sometimes a great photograph is a gift of time and space. Main Street, Saratoga Springs, New York, was taken from the United States Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1931. Had Evans asked for a room with a picture perfect view? Or did the view only look perfect in Evans’s picture taken on that day, at the moment? The scene has something of the proportioned urban vistas he would have seen on his European trip in 1926. There is something Parisian here.
Recent rain has presented a dreamy shimmer. The light is coming from the clearing weather in the distance. The slick road looks almost like a canal and blends into the sky. In neat rows the shiny automobiles are all black. The filigree of tree branches doodles across the frame.
Although this is one of Evans’s best known and cherished images, the vision of pictorial and social harmony is unusual. No screeching billboards or shop signs. No tension on the street. Sometimes the modern world does offer a rare moment of equanimity.
The town of Ossining, where Walker Evans lived for a short time, lies up the Hudson River from Manhattan. He made many photographs there. His views of its hillside communities and single building were shot with a large format camera, but he also made a number of snapshots on the street with a 35 mm Leica. He was experimenting, figuring out what could be done with such lightweight and versatile equipment. It was around this time that Henri Cartier-Bresson began to work with a Leica in Europe. Evans took two photographs of this couple in their parked car. In the other exposure the woman is smelling, but Evans preferred the more wary expression he caught here (the stern gaze of women recurs in his work). This photograph was included in his book American Photographs and because a source of inspiration for younger photographers such as Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand.
Of all the celebrated photographers of the last century, the one who remains the most relevant today, and the one with the widest influence, is Walker Evans (St. Louis, Missouri 1903 – New Haven, Connecticut, 1975). His images, made in what he called the “documentary style”, are among the best known in the history of the medium. Direct and generous, analytical yet lyrical, carefully composed but unforced, his ways of photographing left the door open for countless others.
For a while, Evans’ reputation rested on the photographs he had made in the southern parts of the USA in the 1930s, but his achievement was wider than that. He worked with every camera format and photographed many subjects in different ways, from surreptitious street shots, to meticulous and exacting studies of architecture. He embraced new artistic and technical developments, and at the end of his life he explored what could be done with a Polaroid camera. What united it all was a deep interest in, and affection for, the look and feel of everyday life. In a culture increasingly obsessed with the new, Evans cherished things that were standing the test of time, be it a face or the facade of a warehouse.
Evans was also concerned with the ways photographic meaning is related to context, text, and relations between images, whether on the gallery wall, or on the pages of books and magazines. To be in control of one’s photographs means being in control how they are presented and circulated in the world. So, as well as being a remarkable image-maker, Evans was also an editor, writer and designer, shaping the way his work met its public. In this exhibition we see the range of Evans’ themes and approaches, and his understated resistance to the excesses and shallowness of so much American culture becomes clear.
A Young Modernist
Walker Evans spent most of 1926 in Paris, studying at the Sorbonne but struggling to become a writer. Charles Baudelaire and Gustave Flaubert were his models, while he paid attention to contemporaries such as James Joyce and Blaise Cendrars. He made a handful photographs with a pocket camera, notably a series of self-portraits.
Returning to New York, Evans began to take photography seriously. He knew the city photographs of Ralph Steiner, Charles Sheeler, and especially Paul Strand. Their bold compositions presented Manhattan as a quintessentially modern metropolis. Evans was also aware of the ‘New Vision’ in European photography, with its enthusiastic embrace of modernist form, especially in architecture. He published a portfolio in the journal Architectural Record, and supplied three photographs from around the Brooklyn Bridge for a deluxe publication of Hart Crane’s epic poem The Bridge (1930).
The economic crash of October 1929 and the ensuing cultural turmoil sharpened the creative and political minds of all the ambitious artists of Evans’ generation. He soon stepped back from the celebration of the city to look hard at the lives of those who inhabited it.
A Past Without Nostalgia: Nineteenth Century Architecture
In 1931 Evans was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein, a wealthy friend and supporter of the arts, to photograph Victorian houses in and around Boston. Two years later, the pictures were presented in the architecture room of the recently established Museum of Modern Art, New York. While Evans was credited, the context and display clearly put the emphasis on the architecture rather than Evans’ authorship. Nevertheless, in the press release for the exhibition, Kirstein noted:
Walker Evans’ photographs are perfect. They have been taken during the last four years and form the beginning of a photographic history of American domestic building during its most fantastic, imaginative, and impermanent period. Many of the houses, neglected and despised, have disappeared in the short period since these photographs were made. Evans worked in bright sunlight, forcing the details into utmost clarity. The focus was so sharpened that some of the houses seem to exist in an airless atmosphere such as Edward Hopper suggests in his painting of similar subjects. These houses were photographed in New England and New York.
Cultural artefacts endangered by contemporary tastes were already a key subject matter for Evans, one he would return to at various points.
Signs of Images, Images of Signs
Slick commercial signs, hand-made vernacular signs, street wayfinding signs, billboards, posters and shop fronts: if anything defines the time and place of an urban situation it is signage. While most photographers of Evans’ generation avoided or limited its presence in their images (searching for some kind of ‘purity’), he embraced it whole-heartedly. His fascination with signage, and his conviction that it has much to say about a society and its values, chimed with everything from the Pop Art that emerged at the end of the 1950s to the postmodern arts of quotation and appropriation that were emerging just as Evans was reaching the end of his life in 1975.
Evans’ photographs of signs seem highly reflexive, bringing photography itself into question as a medium of representation, while blurring the distinction between word and image. Photography may be a fine art, but it is also a means to make functional documents, and a vital tool of commerce. Whatever its aesthetic ambitions, Evans understood that serious photography would have to contend with its place in common culture.
Cuba
In 1933 Evans was on commission to photograph Havana and its environs for Carleton Beals’ book The Crime of Cuba. Beals was a journalist committed to exposing the corruption of Gerardo Machado’s brutal rule and America’s complicity with it. Cuba had gained independence back in 1902 but America reserved the right to interfere in its affairs, overseeing its finances and foreign relations.
Evans was not politically naïve. His street shots are a counterpoint to Beals’ high rhetoric of abstract political force and faceless conspiracy. And yet, his wary self-consciousness makes his pictures of people difficult to assess. His Cuba work continues to challenge critics and historians. Should we read it as the snaps of a curious tourist with a great eye for composition and social detail? Or might they register the slight tremors, the “mood on the street” of a tense society watching its back? Evans rarely presented his Cuban pictures after their moment had passed.
Anonymous & Incognito
Evans came into photography just as anonymity was becoming a touchstone of the modern era. Laborers on production lines. Isolated figures in the street. The crowd through which a wanderer might move unnoticed, or subject to the suspicious gaze of others. His early street portraits had much in common with those made by Eugène Atget in France and August Sander in Germany in the 1920s. Lightweight cameras soon made more candid portraits possible and Evans began to experiment, making serial photographs of New York subway passengers, and people on streets in various cities.
Evans worked through a period marked by increasing surveillance, and increasing presence of photography and photographers in daily life. It made him wary of the idea that people could be judged quickly by their appearance. His texts for ‘Labor Anonymous’ (Fortune, October 1946), and ‘The Unposed Portrait’ (Harper’s Bazaar, March 1962) push the reader to think again about the limits of photography.
Car Culture
In 1903 (the year Walker Evans was born) there were 4,000 cars in America. By 1930 there were 26.7 million: one for every 4.5 people. The transformation was breathless. Roadsides were redefined by billboards, gas stations, and motels. Towns and cities were designed or adapted for car use.
Evans enjoyed driving, and much of his photography beyond New York required a car. However, the rapid changes that cars were bringing to the appearance and the functioning of society left him feeling ambivalent. In the mass media at least, cars were the embodiment of optimism and mobility. Waste and despoilment were kept out of site, on the stage wings of progress. Evans’ view of rusting cars in a field (Joe’s Auto Graveyard, 1936) is a glimpse behind the scenes. This theme stayed with him for life. In 1962 he published a photo-essay in Fortune titled ‘The Auto Junkyard’, and in the 1970s, he also made many Polaroid photographs of cars and trucks rusting in fields.
Three Tenant Farmer Families
In the summer of 1936, the writer James Agee was commissioned to make a report on cotton farm tenancy in the American south. He chose Evans as his photographer. They committed to the project with great energy but while at work they barely overlapped. Evans recalled: “We lived with [the three families] for three weeks, as I remember it. We told them exactly what we were doing, and we worked intensely and separately. I didn’t see Agee. He was working all day interviewing and taking notes, and I was photographing.”
When Agee’s text was ten times longer than planned, Fortune dropped the project leaving him and Evans to pursue it as a book. Evans assembled a discrete sequence of thirty-one photos that would be set apart from the text, with no captions. Such radical separation of word and image stood against the tide of more conventional documentary practices. The resulting book, Let us now Praise Famous Men, finally appeared in 1941. Evans’ sequence shows him perfecting a way of seeing that was stoic and inscrutable, associative yet anti narrative, with images that eventually became some of the most famous of the era, and of his career.
Chicago
In late 1946, Evans opened a major solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. In February 1947, Fortune published his ambitious photo-essay ‘Chicago: a camera exploration’. Across ten pages he avoided the city’s “prized and remarkable postcard colossi” to show “sights that meet a leisured and untethered eye,” as he put it in his text for the piece. The layout looked celebratory but its tone was not: “Chicago decays as it does everything else – spectacularly and speedily.” The fourth spread is the most remarkable, showing citizens at the corner of State and Randolph Streets. These are post-war consumers, Caucasian, Asian and African-American. Evans places himself directly in their path. Trapped anxiously in bright sunlight the faces hint at the unrest beneath middle-class decorum.
Beyond street portraits, Evans made a comprehensive study of Chicago’s remarkably mixed architecture, allowing him to resume his ongoing interest in buildings as a kind of indirect portrait of a society. The Chicago photo-essay for Fortune was by far his most significant magazine work to date, giving him the confidence to develop and refine what he wanted to do with the printed page in the coming years.
Small Towns & Neighbourhoods
Although Evans’ photography began in New York and he made a substantial photographic portrait of Chicago, he remained convinced that it was the smaller towns that offered a more accurate sense of the nation. The major cities of the USA are always exceptional, and tend to think of themselves as such. Evans concerned himself with the typical, and with the pragmatic ways small towns work and grow. Away from intense modern progress, artefacts of the past persist until they no longer function, rather than being replaced for the sake of it. Some of Evans’ most loved and complex photographs came out of this commitment to typical places.
Message from the Interior
Evans’ deep interest in rooms was long-lasting, and it suited his slow and careful pace of observation. With no people present, an interior scene can become a portrait of an individual, a family, or a community. Moreover, the way a camera records will allow everything that is present to become significant, as in a still life composition. Details of décor. Treasured objects. Casual objects. Furniture. Fabrics. Even the atmosphere of a room can be communicated.
African Sculpture: an Art of Documentation
In 1935 the Museum of Modern Art, New York, commissioned Evans to document nearly five hundred sculptures gathered for an exhibition of African art. In the museum itself each object was shot separately (with a few objects documented in pairs) in long exposure, during which lights were sometimes moved around to produce an all-over, hyper-factual clarity. Prints were made for extensive teaching folios, and a travelling exhibition. The catalogue for MoMA’s exhibition African Negro Art (in which Evans is not credited) was a serious attempt to look at the origin and complexity of these objects beyond the crude reductions and exoticism of the attitudes of European surrealists and modernist artists of the time. Although it was a free-standing commission, we can view this work in the context of Evans’ earlier commission from the Museum of Modern Art to photograph Victorian architecture, as well commissions to document folk art at New York’s Downtown Gallery, and Diego Rivera’s political murals for the Workers’ School of New York.
Vernacular Designs, Common Objects
Evans took the forces of modernity and modernisation – economic, political, social, aesthetic – as a subject matter to be considered carefully. These forces could be sensed most acutely through objects that had somehow survived the onslaught of modernisation or were about to succumb to it. Even the titles of Evans’ Fortune magazine photo-essays signalled his suspicion of the new: ‘The Wreckers’, ‘These Dark Satanic Mills’, ‘Downtown: A Last Look Backward’, ‘Before they Disappear’, ‘The Last of Railroad Steam’, ‘The Auto-Junkyard’.
Nevertheless, it would be hasty to dismiss this as nostalgia, or a sentimental looking back in the knowledge that the juggernaut of progress could not be stopped. In 1956 Evans observed: “[N]ostalgia has become debased to mean a kind of syrup savoured by self-pitying people conjuring better days, funny hats and an innocence nobody ever had.” In a caption for a series of photographs of antique store window displays he declared: “Nostalgia I disdain: pray keep me forever separated from an atmosphere of moist elderly eyes just about to spill over at the sight of grandmother’s tea set. Design just a little dated will interest any artist. Design current is always terrible. Anyone who has tried to find a good contemporary lamp or clock will know what I mean.”
Walker Evans, ‘Before They Disappear’, Fortune, March 1957
The familiar insignia of the freight cars are like old ditties beating in the back of our heads. Once we knew them all by heart, they were with us like the weather, like the backs of books we collected, and like the streets we walked in.
Brought into focus by selection, you almost expect these brave and naïve emblems to emit the very sound of railroading – the iron whines, the Steely screechers, and the attenuated nocturnal moans of steam transportation.
They don’t quite do that. But they are worth examining, not only for the commemorative thoughts they carry, but because they are going to disappear from the US landscape one day you have only to notice the new, exceedingly distinguished lettering of the New Haven’s car sides, or the redesigned Boston & Maine signature, to see that the fell hand of the contemporary commercial designer is lurking near, T-square poised.
When we can no longer catch sight of the great Chinese red and black double tadpole of the Northern Pacific, or the simple old cross of the Santa Fe, then will a whole world of cherished association have been destroyed. Impiety could go no further.
Walker Evans, ‘The Auto Junkyard’, Fortune, April 1962
The nadir of landscape scenery is the great American auto-junk scrap pile. With the effect of some evil prank, these obscene perversities leer out of the countryside almost anywhere, often in the middle of idyllic rural spots … Pictorially speaking, the result is chaos abstracted, and this has considerable curious interest in itself. There is a secret imp in almost every civilized man that bids him delight in the surprises and in the mockery in the forms of destruction. At times, nothing could be gayer than the complete collapse of our fanciest contrivances. Scenes like these are rich in tragicomic suggestions of the fall of man from his high ride.
Walker Evans, ‘The U.S. Depot’‚ Fortune, February 1953
He who travels by rail over the lesser lines of the USA clangs and shunts straight into his own childhood. Most of the smalltown railroad stations up and down the country are now about fifty years old. Looked at collectively they seem more and more toylike – as model railroad toys grow more and more like the real thing. With only a slight effort of the imagination, these encrusted little buildings turn into miniature stage sets, and the people in them correctly costumed dolls. You feel an old affection for the way a station agent throws the block-signal lever there in his coal-heated office. And what in that green-paper note handed up on its looped stick to the engineer as the 3:52 breaks to a stop? Does it say “Train five Engine eight four nine six delayed at Millerton hot journal box,” or does it say “Tell Jeanie I’ll get pork chops?”
Walker Evans, ‘Beauties of the Common Tool’, Fortune, July 1955
Among the low-priced, factory-produced goods, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear “undesigned” forms. The Swedish steel pliers pictured above, with their somehow swanlike flow, and the objects on the following pages, in all their tough simplicity, illustrate this. Aside from their functions – though they are exclusively wedded to function – each of these tools lures the eye to follow its curves and angles, and invites the hand to test its balance.
Who would sully the lines of the tin-cutting shears on page 105 with a single added bend or whorl? Or clothe in any way the fine naked impression of heft and bite in the crescent wrench on page 107? To be sure, some design-happy manufacturers have tampered with certain tool classics; the beautiful plumb bob, which used to come naively and solemnly shaped like a child’s top, now looks suspiciously like a toy space ship, and is no longer brassy. But not much can be done to spoil a crate opener, that nobly ferocious statement in black steel as may be seen on page 104. In fact, almost all the basic small tools stand, aesthetically speaking, for elegance, candour and purity.
Labor Anonymous is a 1946 photo series by Walker Evans, commissioned by Fortune magazine, documenting 50+ candid, close-up street portraits of Detroit workers. Capturing diverse, unposed facial expressions and postures, the project created a “physiognomy of a nation,” exploring modern anonymity and the dignity of laborers.
Shot on assignment for Fortune magazine in 1946, this Walker Evans photograph of an unknown Detroit office worker is reproduced from Labor Anonymous, just out from D.A.P. Publishing and Walther König. “When I knew him, Evans was beset by troubles of all kinds,” Jerry L Thompson writes, “money troubles, tax troubles, marriage troubles (he divorced a second time in 1972), health troubles, advancing age, declining strength: the full catastrophe that flesh is heir to. As he approached 70, most onlookers would have taken him (even by the standards of that time) to be at least a decade older. Yet every time he walked out to start his day he was ready to be an artist. Every day had some work in it – for Evans, work meant being an artist – and the work got done even if every practical concern – what ordinary people call work – fell by the wayside.”
Evans was in poor health when he began to work with the Polaroid SX-70 in 1973; he was attracted to the camera’s small, elegant design and the instant color prints it generated that required no tedious lab or darkroom work. Like the developing Polaroid print itself, with its miraculous and immediate image, Evans came to life and worked feverishly with the new camera. At the age of seventy, he returned to many of his lifelong themes, including vernacular architecture, domestic interiors, portraiture, and roadside signage.
Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website
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“Aesthetically (both pictorially and in exhibition design) there is a wonderful frisson to the grouping of the photographs in these darker, enclosed, tightly curated gallery spaces that is so intoxicating to the senses.” Dr Marcus Bunyan
Exhibition dates: 28th November, 2025 – 3rd May, 2026
Curator: Maggie Finch, Curator of Photography at the NGV
After being introduced to Pablo Picasso in 1935, Dora Maar became his lover, model and muse until their tumultuous liaison ended in 1943. During their time together, Maar famously documented the creation of the monumental painting Guernica in Picasso’s Paris studio. This portrait captures the artist at ease, bathed in an endlessly echoing lineation of shadows from the above reed screen. The portrait Maar took of Picasso a year later, displayed nearby, shows him seated outside, his eyes glinting with intensity. Both images were taken in Mougins, near Cannes, an area that Picasso returned to every summer.
Wall text from the exhibition
The interface of light
For much of its running length this exhibition of cinematic scope at the National Gallery of Victoria curated by the dependable Maggie Finch is a stimulating ride.
The early galleries in particular are a joy to behold, mixing as they do international and Australian female photographers mainly from the period between the two world wars. This placement of Australian photography in an international context (or vice versa) is something I have desired to see for a very long time in an Australian photographic exhibition. One informing the other. And it works so well!
Aesthetically (both pictorially and in exhibition design) there is a wonderful frisson to the grouping of the photographs in these darker, enclosed, tightly curated gallery spaces that is so intoxicating to the senses. Ruth Hollick meets Madame d’Ora, Florence Henri meets Yamawaki Michiko, and Olive Cotton meets Dora Maar on the gallery walls, interwoven into an intertextual conversation on photography that spans identities, countries and continents. Perhaps not a legacy of light rather the interface of light, a shared connection, one nexus to another. I could have breathed in these photographs for hours!
That energy starts to dissipate as the gallery spaces open out in the second half of the exhibition, especially in the section ‘People and Place’ (see below). Poor Farm Security Administration prints of now famous photographs printed very flatly in the mid-1970s and purchased for the gallery in the same time period don’t help the cause – they need to be replaced in the collection with more appropriate prints of these images.
By the time of the final section, ‘New Ways Of Seeing: Portraits, Intimacy, Liberation’ (see below), the international representation has disappeared altogether and all the intoxicating energy has gone. In this section we find strong, eloquent and important Australian photographs from the period – conceptual, feminist, and on liberation – but it would have been great to have seen them paired with photographs from international photographers such as Cindy Sherman, Mary Ellen Mark, and VALIE EXPORT for example.
On reflection I can say that this is a strong exhibition from the NGV coherently and intelligently curated by Maggie Finch. It is fantastic to see that the gallery has been “splashing the cash” in recent years – supported by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and the Bowness family – with over 170 new acquisitions for the photographic collection.
However for a public gallery, with most of the photographs already in the collection, to charge $25 entry price is really beyond the pale. I went twice to see the exhibition and $50 is a fair whack of money out of anyone’s budget.
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Lee Miller Nimet Eloui Bey (c. 1930, below); Lee Miller Man Ray (1931, below); Gisele Freund’s Simone de Beauvoir (1952 printed c. 1975, below), Jean-Paul Satre (1939 printed c. 1975, below), Vita Sackville-West (1938 printed c. 1975, below) and Virginia Woolfe (1939 printed c. 1975, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light celebrates the wide-ranging photographic practices of more than eighty women artists working between 1900 and 1975. Featuring prints, postcards, photobooks and magazines, the exhibition explores the role of photographers as image-makers, and the ways in which women artists create an image of themselves, of others, of the times – from images of the women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century, through to the women’s liberation movement and beyond. From Melbourne to Tokyo, Paris to Buenos Aires, the exhibition showcases the works of trailblazing artists such as Berenice Abbott, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Imogen Cunningham, Mikki Ferrill, Sue Ford, Christine Godden, Ponch Hawkes, Annemarie Heinrich, Ruth Hollick, Florence Henri, Kati Horna, Germaine Krull, Tina Modotti, Lucia Moholy, Toyoko Tokiwa, Yamazawa Eiko and many more.
The exhibition reflects a recent collecting focus on celebrating the contributions of women artists of the early twentieth century in the NGV Photography Collection. Featuring portraiture, photojournalism, landscape photography, photomontage, experimental avant-garde imagery and more, Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light presents the diverse work of women photographers against the backdrop of significant social, political and cultural events.
Text from the NGV website
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Lee Miller Nimet Eloui Bey (c. 1930, below) and Lee Miller Man Ray (1931, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
At her Paris studio, Lee Miller photographed this self-assured portrait of Egyptian model Nimet Eloui Bey. The model’s direct, inescapable gaze grips the viewer, perhaps foreshadowing the conflict to come. In the years after Miller took this portrait, she and her subject’s businessman husband, Aziz Eloui Bey, would pursue a passionate affair, resulting in divorce and the explosive end to Miller’s relationship with artist Man Ray. After leaving Paris, Miller set up a successful new studio in New York in 1932, before marrying Aziz and moving with him to Cairo.
Wall text from the exhibition
Lee Miller (American, 1907-1977) Man Ray (installation view) 1931 Gelatin silver photograph 23.1 x 17.5cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased with funds donated by Joy And
Following a successful modelling career, Lee Miller moved to Paris in 1929. Intending to study under the Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray, she soon became his assistant, model and lover. This portrait of Man Ray was taken in 1931, when Miller was working out of her small Montparnasse home studio. The artist appears to be lost in thought, his dilated pupils and furrowed brow suggesting an idea revealing itself. While the image shows reverence for the contemplative artist, it also hints at the couple’s domestic ease, with Man Ray appearing comfortable in the presence of Miller’s camera.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Gisèle Freund’s Simone de Beauvoir (1952 printed c. 1975) and Jean-Paul Satre (1939 printed c. 1975) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Gisèle Freund’s Vita Sackville-West (1938 printed c. 1975) and Virginia Woolfe (1939 printed c. 1975) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
In 1933 Gisèle Freund fled Frankfurt for Paris, where she studied photographic portraiture at the Sorbonne. Uniquely for the time, she used Kodachrome and Agfacolor positive film for her colour portraits of writers and artists in Paris – her portrait of James Joyce was selected as the first colour cover of Time magazine in 1939. That same year she photographed Virginia Woolf at her home in Tavistock Square, London. Freund later recalled of her encounter with Woolf, ‘frail, luminous, she was the very incarnation of her prose’.
Wall text from the exhibition
In Exchange: Social Milieu and Collaboration
The intertwined lives of avant-garde artists working in the interwar period often played out in works of art depicting friendship and love. Photographers captured these relationships, often revealing both the affection and the complex relations between themselves and their artistic collaborators, muses and subjects.
Paris in the interwar period was a hotbed for artistic exchange. Between 1935 and 1936, Dora Maar photographed her then partner Pablo Picasso in her Paris studio. She also created collaborative images with fellow Surrealists such as Léonor Fini, Jacqueline Lamba and André Breton. Lee Miller, also working in Paris during this period, photographed her lover and artistic partner Man Ray. Miller, in turn, was the subject of many of Man Ray’s own works.
In Mexico, Kati Horna frequently photographed her close friend, British-born painter and writer Leonora Carrington. Lola Álvarez Bravo’s image of the Spanish Surrealist artist Remedios Varo is another example of the playful and experimental collaborations between artists at the time. Such photographs demonstrate the mutual influence between women artists.
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing photographs by Dora Maar including at second right, photographs of Picasso (1935-1936, below) and at right, Self-portrait at the window (c. 1935, below) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
(clockwise from bottom left)
Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) No title (Pablo Picasso facing left) No title (Pablo Picasso facing right, holding a cigarette) No title (Profile of Pablo Picasso facing left) No title (Pablo Picasso facing left, with left hand to mouth) (installation view) 1935-1936 Gelatin silver photographs National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) Self-portrait at the window (installation view) c. 1935 Gelatin silver print Private collection, Melbourne Promised gift Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) Dawn (installation view) 1935 Reproduced in Minotaure No. 8, 1936 Magazine: offset lithographs and printed text Shaw Research Library Photos: Marcus Bunyan
The framing of Dora Maar’s Self-portrait at the window, Paris, c. 1935, is mired in this portrait taken by Maar of her friend Jacqueline Lamba, published in the Surrealist magazine Minotaure in June 1936. As art historian and theorist
Abigail Solomon-Godeau writes, ‘Lambda might be viewed as contained or imprisoned by the stone wall behind which she stands … Alternately, the photograph might be seen as the space of domesticity, overcome by time and brambles’. For Solomon-Godeau, it is also, importantly, an ‘exchange between two women artists’.
Vitrine text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Dora Maar’s Pablo Picasso (1938, below); Pablo Picasso standing under reed screening. Mougins, summer, 1937 (1937, top of posting) and Aperitif in the garden of the Hotel Vaste Horizon with Andre Breton, Jacqueline lamb, Paul and Nusch Eluard. Mougins, 1936-1937 (1936-1937) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) Pablo Picasso (installation view) 1938 Gelatin silver print 11.9 x 17.9cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) Pablo Picasso standing under reed screening, Mougins, summer, 1937 (Pablo Picasso debout sous les cannisses, Mougins, été, 1937) (installation view) 1937 22.0 x 17.2cm (image) 23.1 x 18.2cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Berenice Abbott Eugène Atget (1927, printed c. 1970-1978) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) Janet Flanner 1927 Gelatin silver photograph Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
While living in Paris in the 1920s, Berenice Abbott produced an extraordinary body of images featuring the artists, writers and performers in her social circle, such as Eugène Atget, Jean Cocteau and James Joyce. This portrait of American writer Janet Flanner was also captured by Abbott during this time. A journalist who wrote under the pen name ‘Genêt’, Flanner was a long-term contributor to The New Yorker and a prominent member of the expatriate community living in Paris during the interwar period. In this portrait, Flanner is photographed wearing a suit with striped pants and a top hat, upon which are stacked two masks, adding a Surrealist edge to the image.
Wall text from the exhibition
Kati Horna (Mexican born Hungary, 1912-2000) Leonora Carrington (installation view) 1957 Gelatin silver photograph 24.2 x 18.2cm (image) 25.3 x 20.2cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Born to a Jewish family in Hungary, Kati Horna was forced to leave Europe following the rise of Nazism. She belonged to the circle of Surrealist expatriate artists in Mexico producing experimental images. In this photocollage, Horna has superimposed an image of British-born painter and writer Leonora Carrington – a close friend of hers – onto a reproduction of Hans Holbein the Younger’s 1518 painting Portrait of an unknown young man. Created on the occasion of Carrington’s birthday, the humorous merging of the photograph with the painted reproduction, coupled with the clash of genders and time periods, gives the scene a Surrealist tone.
Lola Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993) No title (Remedios Varo) (installation view) c. 1950 Gelatin silver photograph 23.4 x 18.9cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Lola Álvarez Bravo was one of the first artists to produce photomontages in Mexico. At the forefront of artistic experimentation, Álvarez Bravo created this image by layering multiple negatives. The subject is believed to be Remedios Varo, a Spanish Surrealist artist who arrived in Mexico in 1941. Alongside Álvarez Bravo, Kati Horna and Leonora Carrington, Varo was part of a community of expatriate artists and intellectuals active in Mexico during the mid twentieth century. Drawing inspiration from the Surrealist movement, Álvarez Bravo overlaid the portrait with an image of rippling water, creating a tranquil scene in which the subject appears to be floating.
Wall text from the exhibition
Unlike in many other countries, in Mexico artists had opportunities to work as long as they did not threaten the locals’ career prospects. Thus, many Spanish-speaking immigrants started teaching in universities, raising a new generation of Mexican creatives and academics. Apart from their jobs, the majority of Europeans did not interact closely with the locals, preferring to keep the company of their fellow refugees. The reason was not the rejection of local customs but the shared experience of war, tragedy, and dramatic flight across ravaged Europe.
The house of the artist Remedios Varo was the central meeting point for the whole community. Anyone in need could find company, shelter, and money raised by all group members. Varo hosted dinners and parties. She also sent party invitations to random addresses taken from a phone book.
Claude Cahun (French, 1894-1854) and Marcel Moore (French, 1892-1872) Disavowals, or Cancelled Confessions (Aveux non avenus) (installation views) 1930 Published by Éditions du Carrefour, Paris Illustrated book: photogravure, letterpress text, 237 pages, 10 heliographs, paper cover, stitched binding Shaw Research Library, acquired through the Friends of the Gallery library Endowment, 2017 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Born Lucy Schwob, Claude Cahun was a celebrated French artist associated with the Surrealist movement. Aveux non avenus, loosely translated as Cancelled Confessions or Disavowals, is the second book Cajun created with her stepsister, lifelong partner and artistic collaborator, graphic artist Marcel Moore. This subversive semi-autobiographical work couples poems, recollections and aphorisms with dreamlike photomontages. The photomontages include many of Cahun’s performative self-portraits, images that challenge established notions of gender identity.
Vitrine text from the exhibition
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right in the bottom image, Francesca Woodman Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island) (c. 1975-1978 printed after 1981, below); Ellen Auerbach R. Schottelius in New York (1953 printed 1992, below); Barbara Morgan Martha Graham – Letter to the world (1940, below); Lotti Jacobi Dancer #16, Pauline Koner, New York (c. 1937, printed 1992); and two Photogenic drawing (c. 1940 and c. 1950) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Francesca Woodman (American, 1958-1981) Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island) (installation view) c. 1975-1978, printed after 1981 Gelatin silver photograph 13.7 x 13.8cm (image) 25.3 x 20.3cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2025 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Francesca Woodman is known for her intimate black-and-white self-portraits and photographs featuring other women sitters. The bodies are often blurred, with faces hidden and appearing to blend into the background. In this self-portrait, Woodman crouches down in the corner of a decrepit room, her patterned gown somehow reflecting – or merging with – the floral wallpaper that peels down in rough remnants behind her. The photograph was created while Woodman was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, where she studied from 1975 to 1978 and which produced the majority of her extant photographs following her untimely death in 1981.
Wall text from the exhibition
Ellen Auerbach (German 1906-2004) R. Schottelius in New York (installation view) 1953, printed 1992 Gelatin silver photograph 23.2 x 18.5cm (image) 25.0 x 27.5cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2023 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
A constant innovator throughout her life, Ellen Auerbach received her first camera in 1928 as a tool to aid her studies in sculpture. The following year, she met her professional and romantic partner Grete Stern in Berlin, where they formed studio ringl+pit. After escaping fascist Germany, Auerbach eventually relocated to the United States and continued her photographic practice, settling among New York’s avant-garde. In this rooftop scene, she captures German dancer Renate Schottelius leaping into the air. In contrast with the surrounding static, imposing skyscrapers, the liberated body in joyous motion serves as a symbol for freedom.
Wall text from the exhibition
Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992) Martha Graham – Letter to the world (installation view) 1940 Gelatin silver photograph 38.9 x 48.2cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Barbara Morgan met the pioneering American choreographer and dancer Martha Graham in 1935, and their working relationship lasted over six decades. Graham later reflected in 1980: “It is rare that even an inspired photographer possesses the demonic eye which can capture the instant of dance and transform it into timeless gesture. In Barbara Morgan I found that person. In looking at these photographs today, I feel, as I felt when I first saw them, privileged to have been a part of this collaboration. For to me, Barbara Morgan through her art reveals the inner landscape that is a dancer’s world.”
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Bodies, Rhythm and Movement
From the very beginnings of photography, the female nude genre remained primarily the domain of the male photographer. However, twentieth-century women artists, particularly those working within the avant-garde scene of the interwar period, reclaimed the male gaze, creatively experimenting with the representation of women’s bodies.
Artists such as Laure Albin Guillot and Germaine Krull produced nudes ranging from the intimate and sensual to the contained and stark. Such experimental compositions were also a vital aspect of the work of Florence Henri, whose images allowed for new readings of the body. In the 1970s artists such as Sue Ford continued this legacy of experimentation, combining depictions of women’s bodies with scenes from nature.
Representations of women’s bodies in motion were another means of artistic and physical liberation. The collaborations between dancers and artists, for example Barbara Morgan and Martha Graham, and Ellen Auerbach and Renate Schottelius, allowed for experimentation and dynamic image-making. These creative partnerships were shaped by movement and a shared response between artist and subject.
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Germaine Krull Daretha (Dorothea) Albu (c. 1925, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Germaine Krull Daretha (Dorothea) Albu (c. 1925, below); Florence Henri Nude composition (c. 1930, below); Florence Henri Line Viala (Nude study), Paris (1934); and Laure Albin Guillot Nude Study (1943) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) Daretha (Dorothea) Albu (installation view) c. 1925 Gelatin silver photograph 19.7 x 11.7cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2020 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
This intimate portrait shows the German dancer Dorothea Albu elegantly draped in a feather boa – possibly a reference to her life in show business. The soft focus of the image, along with Albu’s gently closed eyes, creates a serene scene. The work is believed to be from a series of female nudes that Germaine Krull photographed in her Berlin studio between 1922 and 1925.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Florence Henri Nude composition (c. 1930, below) and Florence Henri Line Viala (Nude study), Paris (1934, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Florence Henri (European born USA, 1893-1982) Nude composition (Nu composition) (installation view) c. 1930 Gelatin silver photograph 22.9 x 17.0cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2021 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Florence Henri (European born USA, 1893-1982) Line Viala (Nude study), Paris (installation view) 1934 Gelatin silver photograph 22.9 x 17.2cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2023 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
In the 1930s Florence Henri made numerous photographs of female nudes. These works often feature modern women who appear bold, confident and at ease in their own skin and sexuality. In this photograph, Henri uses dramatic lighting to create deep shadows that contour and highlight the form of actress Line Viala’s body. Henri’s use of a blank canvas as a plain backdrop further accentuates the model as the sole focus of the image. Perhaps Henri’s choice of a blank canvas backdrop is also a subtle reference to the traditionally male-dominated realm of nude female painting.
Another vital aspect of her practice was her nude female compositions, such as Nude composition (Nu composition), 1930. Created in the year after establishing her studio in Paris, it employs her characteristically unique, elevated vantage point and raking lighting to disrupt a sense of visual order and perspective. Henri constructs a scene in which the upper half of a woman’s naked body (her chest, breasts, arms, head and hair) creates an asymmetrical focal point at the top of the photograph. Lying next to the woman, and, seemingly, the subject of her gaze, is a large shell, while plants at the base of the image echo the woman’s flowing hair. While appearing to be set on a bed of sand, on closer inspection the textured base is revealed as a coarse sheet.
The dreamlike image, confident and controlled, which merges the female body with the symbolic shell and forms from nature, creates a scene of sensuousness and self-empowerment that is erotic and modern. Henri’s nude compositions, along with those of peers working in France such as Dora Maar and Nora Dumas, claimed the female body as a subject of their own – a trend that emerged among a number of female photographers, in the interwar period.
Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879-1962) Nude study (Étude de nu) (installation view) 1943 Gelatin silver photograph 29.5 x 17.9cm (image) 29.5 x 23.1cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Spanning fashion and portraiture to advertising and landscapes, Laure Albin Guillot’s images were published regularly in magazines and featured in the first independent Salon of Photography in Paris in 1928. Albin Guillot collaborated with French poet Paul Valéry in the 1930s to create male nude images to accompany his poem ‘La Cantate du Narcisse’ (‘The Song of Narcissus’). She continued to produce numerous nude studies of women throughout the 1930s–40s, such as this closely cropped portrait that enhances the angular lines and features of the sitter’s body.
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Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Laure Albin Guillot Nude study (Étude de nu) (1943, above); Anne Brigman Quest (1931); Olive Cotton Max after surfing (1939, printed 1998); and Louise Dahl-Wolfe Nude in water (1941) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing Germaine Krull Nude studies (Études de nu) (1930) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
One of the most experimental artists of the 1920s and 30s, Germaine Krull photographed a diverse range of subjects, and her images were published widely in magazines and journals. With publications such Nude Studies, created two years after Metal,she is recognised as a pioneer in the single-author photobook format. Nude Studies consists of twenty-four photogravures of female nudes, published with an accompanying introductory text by the artist Jean Cocteau. Created in Krull’s Paris studio, the intimate studies, in which the faces of the women are often obscured, emphasise the sculptural forms of their bodies.
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Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher Coal tipple, Goodspring, Pennsylvania (1975, below); Ilse Bing Self-portrait (1931 printed c. 1993, below); and two Sue Ford photographs, No title (Photogram of two hands and garden path) (c. 1970, below) and No title (Nude montage) (1960s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015) Coal tipple, Goodspring, Pennsylvania (installation view) 1975 From the Artists and photographs folio 1975 Gelatin silver photographs 24.0 x 33.9cm (image and sheet) 40.7 x 49.6cm (support) ed. 9/60 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1976 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
In 1959 married artists Bernd and Hilla Becher started photographing industrial architecture, a practice that would continue for over four decades. While predominantly documenting structures throughout Germany’s Ruhr region, they occasionally worked overseas – this work was made on their first trip to the United States. The Bechers created a system for comparing structures: photographing them from a consistent angle, under virtually identical lighting conditions, printing images at the same size and often displaying them in grids. According to Hilla Becher, their archive allows for narratives to naturally emerge: “Structural patterns and their transformations … can be proved to exist in the case of such relatively exhaustive comparative series.”
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Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) Self-portrait (Autoportrait) (installation view) 1931, printed 1993 Gelatin silver photograph 26.7 x 29.4cm (image) 27.9 x 35.3cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ilse Bing began making photographs in the late 1920s, when she purchased one of the first 35 mm cameras produced by the German company Leica. She made use of the camera’s portability, capturing motion, dizzying angles and contrasts of light, shade and shadow – compositional elements that characterised the New Photography movement. Inspired by Florence Henri, Bing used her camera to disrupt the picture plane. In this famed self-portrait, Bing uses mirrors as a fracturing tool. The self-portrait shows Bing’s reflection holding a camera, accompanied by her side profile in another angled mirror. She controls the various gazes: her own, the viewer’s, the camera’s.
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Time and Mirrors
Photography has long been associated with mirrors and time – as a way of remembering, reflecting and retrieving information. As early as 1859, American writer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr described photography, specifically the daguerreotype, as ‘the mirror with a memory’.
Many artists use the camera to explore identity through portraits and self-portraits. In Ilse Bing’s 1931 self-portrait, captured with her Leica camera, a mirror disrupts the image, disorienting the viewer. Four decades later, Joan Jonas extended this idea, using a video monitor as a mirror to explore reflection, perception and the self.
By the 1970s, repetition and seriality became central to photographic practice. Through sequences of images, artists such as Eve Sonneman, Sue Ford and Bernd and Hilla Becher explored how photography could record and interpret change – both immediate and long-term. Their images reveal the camera’s dual role as an objective instrument and a conceptual recorder of the world.
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, two Sue Ford photographs, No title (Photogram of two hands and garden path) (c. 1970, below) and No title (Nude montage) (1960s, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009) No title (Photogram of two hands and garden path) (installation view) c. 1970 Gelatin silver photograph 27.6 x 34.7cm irreg. (image and sheet) 38.5 x 44.8cm (support) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gerstl Bequest, 2000 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
In the late 1960s and early 70s, Sue Ford created several bodies of highly experimental work. These works involved complex montages, photograms and layered negatives, revealing hours of darkroom experimentation in her Eltham studio in Melbourne’s north-east. Such experiments coincided with Ford’s burgeoning interest in left-wing politics, and her exposure via the media to world events such as the NASA moon landings and the Vietnam War. Ford incorporated imagery and ideas relating to these events, as well as her interest in environmentalism, into these abstracted, Surrealism-inspired works.
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Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009) No title (Nude montage) (installation view) 1960s Gelatin silver photograph 25.6 x 19.9cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gerstl Bequest, 2000 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Real Time is composed of paired photographs taken seconds apart, separated by a black-line border. The ordered presentation allows the viewer to consider the relationship between the images, and the small changes and passing of time between them. Eve Sonneman first showed the photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, before publishing them as a book. In 1976 she saw an advertisement in Artforum from newly established press Printed Matter, which was seeking artists’ books to publish. “So I sent [my photographs] in and that work became my first published book, Real Time,” Sonneman recalled. “I was as thrilled as could be!”
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Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009) Ross, 1964; Ross, 1974 (installation view) 1964-1974, printed 1974 From the Time series (1962-1974) Gelatin silver photograph 11.1 × 20.1cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased with the assistance of the Visual Arts Board and the KODAK (Australasia) PTY LTD Fund, 1974 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009) Jim, 1964; Jim, 1974 (installation view) 1964-1974, printed 1974 From the Time series (1962-1974) Gelatin silver photograph 11.1 × 20.1cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased with the assistance of the Visual Arts Board and the KODAK (Australasia) PTY LTD Fund, 1974 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
“For some time I have been thinking about the camera itself. Trying to explore its particular UNIQUENESS, coming to terms with the fact that I had been trying to ignore for some years, that the camera is actually a MACHINE. … In “Time Series” I tried to use the camera as objectively as possible. It was a time machine. For me it was an amazing experience. It wasn’t until I placed the photograph of the younger face beside the recent photograph that I could fully appreciate the change. The camera showed me with absolute clarity, something I could only just perceive with my naked eye.”
~ Sue Ford, Time Series: An Exhibition of Photographs, Melbourne, 1974
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Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image a video still of Imogen Cunningham Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image from left to right three photographs by Alice Mills, Hilaire Syme dressed for the Kismit Ball (1912-1915, below); Hilaire Syme (c. 1910, below); and Joan Margaret Syme (c. 1918, below) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
People and Place
Depictions of children, mothers and acts of caregiving have traditionally been recurring subjects in photographs taken by women. According to art historian Naomi Rosenblum, in the early 1900s the photographing of children, particularly children with their mothers, was deemed by commentators at the time to be ‘an especially appropriate assignment for women’.
While stereotyping and gender bias remained significant obstacles for women photographers in the early twentieth century, many still innovated through their image-making, while studio work provided women artists with the opportunity for financial independence. Subjects were portrayed in intensely intimate portraits, making visible the people in domestic settings who were often overlooked in photographs and society more broadly.
In Australia, artists such as Olive Cotton produced landscape photography in the dominant Pictorialist style of nostalgic, softly focused images. Everyday, non-professional photography, or vernacular photography, was also widely produced by women photographers of the period. As shown by Inez McPhee’s photo albums depicting the outdoor adventures of the Melbourne Walking Club and Edna Walling’s albums filled with pictures of friends, animals and plants, photography became an increasingly popular way of documenting daily life.
Alice Mills (attributed to) (Australian, 1870-1929) Hilaire Syme dressed for the Kismit Ball 1912-1915 gelatin silver photograph, coloured dyes 70.5 x 43.3cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Dr Veronica Condon, 2005 Public domain
Alice Mills (attributed to) (Australian, 1870-1929) Broothorn Studios, Melbourne Hilaire Syme c. 1910 Gelatin silver photograph, watercolour 185.5 x 74.4cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Dr Veronica Condon, Geoffrey Haggard and Jennifer Smyth, descendants of Sir Geoffrey Syme K.B.E., Managing Editor of the Age newspaper (1908-1942), 2004
An almost opaque layer of paint has been applied to this portrait. The paint obscures some of the details while enhancing others, such as the child’s shiny shoes and the satin sash of her dress. Alice Mills’s portrait of the subject’s younger sister, Joan, has a more conventional treatment in the application of translucent pigments. It remains unclear whether Mills did the hand-colouring. However, having trained in the studio of leading Melbourne photographer Johnstone O’Shaughnessy, she would almost certainly have known about the technique of applying oil-based pigments to photographs to create the illusion of naturalistic colour.
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Alice Mills (attributed to) (Australian, 1870-1929) Broothorn Studios, Melbourne Joan Margaret Syme (installation view) c. 1918 Gelatin silver photograph, coloured dyes 243.85 x 91.45cm (approx) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Presented through the NGV Foundation by Michael Hayne, 2005 Public domain Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Alice Mills (attributed to) (Australian, 1870-1929) Broothorn Studios, Melbourne Joan Margaret Syme c. 1918 Gelatin silver photograph, coloured dyes 243.85 x 91.45cm (approx) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Presented through the NGV Foundation by Michael Hayne, 2005 Public domain
Alice Mills, with help from her husband, Tom Humphreys, set up her first photography studio in 1900. Soon after that she was working under her own name in the Centreway Arcade at 259-263 Collins Street, Melbourne. Mills’s portraits were often published in magazines and newspapers, which brought her to the attention of a large audience of prospective clients. Around 1915 she produced a number of large-scale portraits of Hilaire and Joan Syme, the daughters of then managing editor and co-owner of The Age newspaper Geoffrey Syme. The photographs were made in conjunction with Broothorn Studios, which art historians suggest made the extreme enlargements.
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Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right in the bottom image two Imogen Cunningham photographs, My mother peeling apples (1910, printed 1979) and My father (1906, printed 1979) and six 1920s photographs by the Australian photographer Ruth Hollick (1883-1977): No title (Seated girl looking over shoulder) (c. 1926); No title (Little girl holding small book) (1920s); No title (Young girl holding a doll) (1920s); No title (Laughing child) (c. 1926); Miss Pamela Ann McKewan (c. 1929); and No title (Laughing girl in cap) (1920s) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left four photographs by Ruth Hollick: Bobby (1927); No title (Baby in striped dress) (1920s); No title (Three children seated on grass) (1920s); and No title (Mother and two children) (1920s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing four photographs by Ruth Hollick: Bobby (1927); No title (Baby in striped dress) (1920s); No title (Three children seated on grass) (1920s); and No title (Mother and two children) (1920s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977) Bobby 1927 Gelatin silver photograph 18.8 x 21.4cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, 1992 Public domain
Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977) No title (Mother and two children) 1920s Gelatin silver photograph 19.0 x 23.9cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, 1992 Public domain
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right three photographs by Ruth Hollick: No title (Young woman in plaid shawl) (1920s); No title (Mother and child) (c. 1926); and Janet Armstrong, Woodbury Estate, Deniliquin, New South Wales (c. 1939) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977) No title (Young girl holding a doll) 1920s Gelatin silver photograph 23.9 x 14.6cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, 1992
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing clippings, press releases, brochures, reviews, invitations and other ephemeral material relating to Ruth Hollick and the Ruth Hollick studio Photos: Marcus Bunyan
In 1928 Ruth Hollick and her partner, fellow photographer Dorothy Izard, held an exhibition at their Collins Street studio of more than 150 portraits of children. Lady Eleanor Mary Latham, wife of then attorney-general Sir John Greig Latham, opened the exhibition, encouraging the audience to consider the possibility of career for women, with Hollick as a role model: ‘Everyone has a right to try and make a living for herself in any profession she likes to take up.’ The period in which Hollick and Izard operated the studio in Collins Street was extremely productive and successful. In 1929 Hollick was the only woman to participate in the Melbourne Exhibition of Pictorial Photography.
Ruth Hollick was widely recognised for her skill in photographing children. In an interview published in 1927, Hollick said: ‘I have always found the work well within a woman’s intellectual grasp, and not too hard a strain from the physical point of view. Although one does not, at this period of women’s freedom, talk of any particular work as being her sphere, there is no doubt but that feminine intuition with children may be particularly helpful … After all the big thing is to catch the real child – show him as he is – no wonderful massing of shadow, no illuminating light is worth a lot if it does not reveal the real Pat or Mollie.’ These materials were collected by Hollick and gifted to the NGV’s Shaw Research Library by her niece Lucy Crosbie Morrison.
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Inez McPhee (Australian, 1908-1999) No title (Inez McPhee’s album of ADA river trip) (installation view) 1936 28.1 x 22.4cm (page) 28.5 x 23.0 x 3.1cm (closed) 28.5 x 46.0 x 1.5cm (open) Album: gelatin silver photographs, newspaper, pencil and pen and ink, 62 pages, cardboard and leather cover, stitched binding Presented through the NGV Foundation by John McPhee, Member and Ann Luck, 2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Inez McPhee (Australian, 1908-1999) No title (Inez McPhee’s album of a trip to New Zealand) (installation view) 1953 Album: gelatin silver photographs, collage, pencil, 40 pages, cardboard cover, stitched binding 31.0 x 24.1cm (page) 31.1 x 24.8 x 1.4cm (closed) 31.1 x 49.0 x 1.0cm (open) Presented through the NGV Foundation by John McPhee, Member and Ann Luck, 2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Inez McPhee was an active member of the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club, founded in 1922. McPhee took her camera on bushwalks with the group and, typical of amateur photographers of the period, compiled albums of the prints. Her albums are filled with images of women engaging in outdoor activities.
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Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left three photographs by Edna Walling: Doris Oak-Rhind, Edna’s Walling’s sister (1920s); Estelle Thompson (1950s-1960s); and No title (Young woman preparing picnic) (1940s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left to right, three photographs by Edna Walling (Australian born England, 1895-1973) Doris Oak-Rhind, Edna’s Walling’s sister (1920s); Estelle Thompson (1950s-1960s); and No title (Young woman preparing picnic) (1940s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Edna Walling (Australian born England, 1895-1973) Estelle Thompson (installation view) 1950s-1960s Gelatin silver photograph 25.4 x 20.6cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Barbara Barnes, 1983 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Many-sided Indeed: Women In Business
“There is more, much more in the photo question than the mere ability to make a technically perfect photo or picture,” wrote New Zealand photographer May Moore in a 1916 essay. “And when it comes to successfully managing a studio of one’s own, one wants to be many-sided indeed … The woman who is to succeed … must make up her mind to equip on all points just as the men do.”
Women-run photography studios emerged as early as the 1850s in places such as England, Japan, Germany and the United States. However, women faced many barriers to operating their own studios well into the twentieth century, and many had to rely on family support. Photographers such as Ruth Hollick, Karimeh Abbud and Hedda Morrison persevered to successfully manage or independently run photography studios in the 1920s-40s. They produced a wide range of images, from those made for commercial and tourist purposes to documentary, artistic and personal photographs.
Edna Walling (Australian born England, 1895-1973) No title (Album) (installation view) 1950s-1960s Album: gelatin silver photographs, 48 pages, cardboard, leather and colour photo-lithograph cover, metal screw binding 24.6 x 32.0cm (page) 25.6 x 34.8 x 3.6cm (closed) 25.6 x 62.8cm (open) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Barbara Barnes, 1983 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Landscape designer Edna Walling kept a personal photo album to capture the creative effervescence of the community at her property at Bickleigh Vale Village in Mooroolbark, Victoria. Nicknamed ‘Trouser Lane’, the property was designed by Walling to be a ‘community of connected gardens and cottages. Many people, including many women, shared in Walling’s unique vision for the space, visiting and residing at Trouser lane over the years. Walling’s album features, among others, images of writer Estelle Thompson, landscape designer Daphne Pearson, builder Esme Johnson, violinist Perry Hart and ballet dancers Harcourt Algernoff and Graham Smith. Also interspersed throughout the album are photographic flower studies.
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Edna Walling (Australian born United Kingdom, 1895-1973) No title (Album) 1950s-1960s Album; gelatin silver photographs, 48 pages, cardboard, leather and colour photo-lithograph cover, metal screw binding 24.6 x 32.0cm (page) 25.6 x 34.8 x 3.6cm (closed) 25.6 x 62.8cm (open) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Barbara Barnes, 1983
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the display cases in the lower two images, photographs by Hedda Morrison (Australian born Germany, 1908-1991) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing three photographs by Dorothy Izard (Australian born England, 1882-1972): Ti-trees (1920s); No title (Dappled tree) (1920s); and No title (Tree in paddock) (1920s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dorothy Izard (Australian born England, 1882-1972) Ti-trees 1920s Gelatin silver photograph 22.8 × 18.4cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, 1992
Dorothy Izard met fellow photographer Ruth Hollick when they were students at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, and they formed both a romantic and a professional partnership. They travelled extensively around regional Victoria in the 1920s and 1930s. Izard was a landscape photographer and, at Hollick’s home studio, was responsible for printing the orders for Hollick’s photographs.
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Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing Ruth Hollick’s artist book Australian flowers (1950s, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977) Australian wildflowers 1950s Artist’s book: hand-coloured gelatin silver photographs on buff paper on brown paper mounts, pen and ink, pencil, (other materials), [5] leaves, brown paper cover, cotton cord binding 33.2 x 25.5cm (page) 34.3 x 26.3 x 1.0cm irreg. (closed) 34.3 x 53.1 x 1.1cm irreg. (open) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Pamela Jane Green, 2021 Public domain
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, four photographs by Hedda Morrison (Australian born Germany, 1908-1991): No title (Hua Shan mountain face) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (The Chessboard Pavilion) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (Step ladder to the nothingness peak ) (1935, printed 1970s); and No title (Lone pine against sunlit cliff face) (1935 printed 1970s, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Hedda Morrison (Australian born Germany, 1908-1991) No title (Lone pine against sunlit cliff face) (installation view) 1935 Gelatin silver photograph 22.8 x 30.3cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1976 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
These photographs were taken in 1935, when Morrison journeyed by train to the Hua Shan mountains in eastern China. She photographed the deep chasms and textures of the mountain ranges, and the Taoist monasteries and monks who assisted the travellers on their journeys.
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Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing photographs by Hedda Morrison (Australian born Germany, 1908-1991) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, six photographs by Hedda Morrison: No title (Morning clouds) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (Fairy palm cliff) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (The stone balustrade) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (Three gnarled pines) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (Two Taoist priests below the fiery palm cliff) (1935, printed 1970s); and No title (Pine tree above the Yellow River plain) (1935, printed 1970s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Hedda Morrison (Australian born Germany, 1908-1991) No title (Pine tree above the Yellow River plain) (installation view) 1935, printed 1970s Gelatin silver photograph 30.3 x 22.7cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1976 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, three photographs by Hedda Morrison: No title (Taoist priest) (1935, printed 1970s); No title (Taoist novice) (1935, printed 1970s); and No title (Taoist priest) (1935, printed 1970s) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Tina Modotti (Italian, 1896-1942) Girls in shawls 1924-1929 Gelatin silver photograph 13.2 x 16.9cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Tina Modotti is known for her socially and politically charged photographs documenting Mexican working life. For Modotti, art, life and politics were inextricably linked. Her photographs show the artist’s commitment to documenting the lives of women and working people. This image is believed to be from a project exploring the popular arts of Mexico, specifically the shawl-like rebozo, and exemplifies Modotti’s humanist style of documentary photography. It is one of the photographs anthropologist Frances Toor commissioned from Modotti and Edward Weston for the magazine Mexican Folkways, published between 1925 and 1937.
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Dora Maar (French 1907-1997) Vendors laughing behind their charcuterie stall, Barcelona (Vendeuses et vendeur riant derrière leur étal de charcuterie, Barcelone) 1933 Gelatin silver photograph 27.2 x 24.0cm (image) 30.3 x 24.0cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2021 Public domain
In 1933 Dora Maar travelled to Spain, where she documented the extreme poverty of the country’s cities through people she met on the streets. Aligning with her left-wing politics and opposition to fascism, her photographs honour working-class citizens rather than buildings or monuments. Maar was fascinated by the characters she encountered in La Boqueria, the market in the heart of Barcelona. In this image, she captures a joyful moment as the women vendors playfully turn away from her, hiding their gaze, while a man smiles directly into Maar’s lens.
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The Document
The primary aim of social documentary photography is to draw attention to social issues, often to promote social or political change. This style of photography blossomed during the tumultuous period of the 1930s, when photographers were commissioned by the United States government to document the effects of the Great Depression. The increased popularity of illustrated mass media such as newspapers and magazines also allowed for the broad dissemination of social documentary images and texts.
The ability of social documentary photography to present a purely objective representation of people or places continues to be fertile ground for debate today.
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing Farm Security Administration photographs by Dorothea Lange Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing clockwise from bottom left, four photographs by Dorothea Lange: Drought-stricken farmers on the shady side of town street while their crops burn up in the fields, Sallisaw, Oklahoma (1936 printed c. 1975, below); Drought refugees from Oklahoma, Blythe, California (1936, printed c. 1975); Real Estate sign along highway, Riverside County, California (1937, printed c. 1975); and Child living in Oklahoma City, Shacktown (1936 printed c. 1975, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Drought-stricken farmers on the shady side of town street while their crops burn up in the fields, Sallisaw, Oklahoma 1936, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 26.4 x 25.4cm (image) 28.0 x 35.4cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Child living in Oklahoma City, Shacktown 1936, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 26.9 x 25.5cm (image) 28.0 x 35.4cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
During the Great Depression, many migrants travelling in search of economic opportunity were forced to create temporary camps along roadsides. For Dorothea Lange, who photographed many such experiences over several years, images like this one were part of a greater project to spark public awareness of the difficulties people were facing. As Lange later said, ‘I had begun to talk to the people I photographed … In the migrant camps, there were always talkers. It gave us a chance to meet on common ground.’
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In Focus: Farm Security Administration Project
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was established in 1937 as part of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal economic reforms, which provided relief to farmers left impoverished by the hardships of the Great Depression. Led by Roy Stryker, the FSA’s photography program was to be one of the most influential social documentary projects ever developed. Many images were reproduced in newspapers and periodicals to show the harsh realities of life for those living in poverty, with the aim of encouraging public support for the government’s economic policies.
The program ran as part of several government agencies, including the Resettlement Administration (1935-37), then the Farm Security Administration (1937-42) and the Office of War Information (1942-44). Stryker hired a range of photographers for the project and, despite their being given comparable briefs, the unique eye of each photographer is apparent in the over 175,000 pictures produced by the project.
As well as forming a comprehensive pictorial record of American life from 1935 to 1944, the FSA photography program generated some of the most recognisable documentary photographs of the twentieth century, including images by women such as Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott and Marjory Collins.
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Woman of the high plains, near Childress, Texas (installation view) 1938, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 49.4 x 39.3cm (image) 50.5 x 40.6cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Woman of the high plains, near Childress, Texas 1938, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 49.4 x 39.3cm (image) 50.5 x 40.6cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
‘We’ve had no work since March. The worst thing we did was when we sold the car, but we had to sell it to eat, and now we can’t get away from here … This county’s a hard county. They won’t help bury you here. If you die, you’re dead, that’s all.’
~ The subject of this photograph, Nettie Featherston, to Dorothea Lange
Wall text from the exhibition
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Towards Los Angeles, California 1936, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 39.6 x 39.1cm (image) 40.8 x 50.5cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975
During the Great Depression, the Great Plains of North America became known as the Dust Bowl. A severe drought turned the soil to dust, leading to the migration of thousands of small-scale farmers who could no longer work the land. Dorothea Lange made many road trips to document the plight of migrants heading west in search of work and opportunities. Many of Lange’s photographs, such as this one, show workers travelling in difficult conditions, on foot and by car. This photograph was also used as the basis for a scene in the 1939 film Of Mice and Men, based on John Steinbeck’s story of two migrant ranch workers.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from top to bottom, two photographs by Dorothea Lange: Plantation Overseer, Mississippi Delta, near Clarksdale, Mississippi (1936, printed c. 1975) and Born a slave, resettled after the Civil War, Carrizo Springs, Texas (1936 printed c. 1975, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Born a slave, resettled after the Civil War, Carrizo Springs, Texas 1936, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 26.5 x 25.4cm (image) 28.0 x 35.4cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
Dorothea Lange witnessed racial segregation in the Southern states and often photographed individuals affected by the resulting social and economic inequalities. This work is also known by an alternate title: ‘Bob Lemmons, Carrizo Springs, Texas. Born a slave about 1850, south of San Antonio. Came to Carrizo Springs during the Civil War with white cattlemen seeking new range. In 1865, with his master was one of the first settlers. Knew Billy the Kid, King Fisher, and other noted bad men of the border.’
Wall text from the exhibition
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Shenandoah Valley, Virginia (installation view) 1941, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 25.6 x 34.1cm (image) 28.0 x 35.4cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Shenandoah Valley, Virginia 1941, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 25.6 x 34.1cm (image) 28.0 x 35.4cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) One of the judges at the horse races, Warrenton, Virginia (installation view) 1941, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 39.6 x 39.1cm (image) 40.8 x 50.5cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Transportation for hep cats Louisville, Kentucky (installation view) 1940, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 25.7 x 34.1cm (image) 36.1 x 44.6cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Transportation for hep cats Louisville, Kentucky 1940, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 25.7 x 34.1cm (image) 36.1 x 44.6cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from third left to right, three photographs by Marion Post Wolcott: Near Wadesboro, North Carolina (1938 printed c. 1975, below); Baptismal service, Morehead, Kentucky (1940 printed c. 1975, below); and Jitterbugging in a juke joint on Saturday night, Clarksdale, Mississippi (1939 printed c. 1975, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Near Wadesboro, North Carolina (installation view) 1938, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 26.4 × 26.5cm (image) 28.0 × 35.3cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975 Public domain Photo: Marcus Bunyan
The people in this photograph are the children of tenant farmers. The older child holds the hand of the younger, whose legs are bowed likely due to rickets, a medical condition caused by malnourishment. This is a vivid image that captures both the intimacy between children and the effects of environmental and economic devastation.
Wall text from the exhibition
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Haircutting in front of plantation store after being paid off on Saturday, Mileston Plantation, Mississippi Delta (installation view) 1939, printed c. 1939 Gelatin silver photograph 27.0 x 34.6cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1980 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Haircutting in front of plantation store after being paid off on Saturday, Mileston Plantation, Mississippi Delta 1939, printed c. 1939 Gelatin silver photograph 27.0 x 34.6cm (image and sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1980
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Baptismal service, Morehead, Kentucky 1940, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver photograph 36.3 X 49.3cm (image) 40.7 X 50.5cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Jitterbugging in a juke joint on Saturday night, Clarksdale, Mississippi 1939, printed c. 1975 gelatin silver photograph 36.7 x 49.3cm (image) 40.7 x 50.5cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1975
Marion Post Wolcott had a keen sense of social justice, having lived in Austria in the early 1930s, where she witnessed firsthand the rise of Nazism. On her return home to New York in 1933, she was determined to use her photography to raise awareness of social inequalities. While working for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in the segregated American South, Wolcott witnessed the bleak economic situation endured by African Americans, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression. With an ‘open eye’, Wolcott captured both the positive effects of the FSA and the difficult realities of daily life. Her candid images of African American communities in the South – such as this joyful shot of people dancing – countered the dominant images of Black lives as they were commonly represented in mainstream media.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing three photographs by Heather George (Australia, 1907-1983): Rawhide bed, Wave Hill Station (1952, printed 1978); Stockyards, Wave Hill Station, Northern Territory (1952, printed 1978); and Stockyards, stockmen in distance. Wave Hill Station, Northern Territory (1952, printed 1978) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Heather George (Australia, 1907-1983) Stockyards, Wave Hill Station, Northern Territory 1952, printed 1978 From The Northern Territory series (1952) Gelatin silver photograph 24.0 x 28.8cm (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1980 Public domain
In the 1950s and 1960s Heather George worked as a freelance photographer and photojournalist. In 1952 Walkabout magazine published a series of photographs George made in the Northern Territory outback, including images of Wave Hill Station, a vast pastoral lease on the lands of the Gurindji people. Fourteen years later, it was to go down in history as the location of a turning point in the recognition of land rights for Australia’s First Nations peoples.
Consuelo Kanaga worked at the San Francisco Chronicle from 1915, later joining the California Camera Club, where she met photographers Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston. Kanaga’s image-making was informed by her involvement in liberal politics and the nascent civil rights movement. In 1950 she stayed in an artists’ colony in Maitland, Florida, and documented the lives of Black field workers living there. This refined portrait of a mother with her children became well known around the world after its inclusion in the touring exhibition The Family of Man, curated by pioneering photographer Edward Steichen.
Wall text from the exhibition
Ruth Orkin (American, 1921-1985) American girl in Italy, Florence (installation view) 1951, printed 1980 Gelatin silver photograph 30.2 x 46.9cm (image) 40.3 x 50.6cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
In 1950 freelance photographer Ruth Orkin was included in the Young Photographers exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in 1951 Life magazine sent her on assignment to Israel. Before returning to America, she spent time in Italy, where she met a young American painter, Jinx Allen. The women collaborated on a series of photographs commissioned from Orkin by Cosmopolitan magazine for an article titled ‘Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone’. Standing in a Florence intersection, Orkin captured her friend as she manoeuvred through a crowd of men. The resulting image is reminiscent of a movie still – Orkin would go on to co-direct two feature films with her husband in the 1950s.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Maggie Diaz 3AW mobile studio, Elwood Beach (1960s printed 2014, below); Maggie Diaz Ladies at the bar, Tavern Club, Chicago (1957, printed 2014); three photographs by Diane Arbus: Girl with a cigar in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. (1965, printed later); Blaze Starr in her living room, Baltimore, Md. (1964, printed later); A Couple at a Dance, N.Y.C. (1960, printed later); and Lisette Model Woman with veil, San Francisco (1949, printed c. 1960) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Maggie Diaz (American, 1925-2016, Australia 1961-2016) 3AW mobile studio, Elwood Beach (installation view) 1960s, printed 2014 Pigment print 27.9 x 30.0cm (image) 48.2 x 33.0cm (sheet) ed. 2/25 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2015 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Moving to Australia in 1961, American photographer Maggie Diaz established her Melbourne studio specialising in advertising, portraiture and social documentary photography. Among her commercial clients was the local radio station 3AW, which displayed her photographs in its new CBD studio. A 1964 article in Melbourne newspaper The Age described the headquarters, noting with apparent surprise that the commissioned photographs are ‘the work of a woman’.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
BOTH
Mikki Ferrill (American, b. 1937) Untitled (installation view) 1970s Gelatin silver photograph 20.7 x 13.6cm (image) 25.5 x 20.2cm (sheet) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Valeria ‘Mikki’ Ferrill is an African American photographer known for her documentation of the Black community in Chicago’s South Side during the 1960s and 70s. Ferrill studied advertising design and illustration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She eventually became a photojournalist, joining a group of Black photographers from the area who shot for local periodicals and newspapers. Ferrill worked on assignments in Mexico in the late 1960s, returning to Chicago in 1970.
Throughout
Wall text from the exhibition
Collaboration and Change
Many postwar street photographers captured their subjects in the ‘instant’. By embracing close-looking, artists relied on chance to create spontaneous compositions, capturing candid, everyday moments. Photographers such as Diane Arbus worked on the streets of New York City, creating vivid portraits of contemporary American life. Arbus often collaborated with her subjects, producing striking images in the moment or curating compositions for magazine commissions.
Fashion photography was on the rise in the period, with American publications such as Harper’s Bazaar playing a pivotal role in amplifying the art form. Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Lillian Bassman and Toni Frissell were regular contributors to the magazine. Their photographs depicted the idealistic and aspirational modern woman.
Yamazawa Eiko and Tokiwa Toyoko were trailblazing women photographers working in Japan at the same time. Their works reflect the social changes of postwar Japan, expressed through the medium of the photobook.
Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, three photographs by the photographer Lillian Bassman (American, 1917-2012): Black – with one white glove, Barbara Mullen, Christian Dior, Harper’s Bazaar, New York, 1958 (1958, printed (1994); Toreador and Barbara Mullen (for Harper’s Bazaar) (1950, printed 2006); and More fashion mileage per dress, Barbara Vaughn, Harper’s Bazaar, New York (1956, below) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at right, three photographs by the photographer Lillian Bassman (American, 1917-2012): Black – with one white glove, Barbara Mullen, Christian Dior, Harper’s Bazaar, New York, 1958 (1958, printed (1994); Toreador and Barbara Mullen (for Harper’s Bazaar) (1950, printed 2006); and More fashion mileage per dress, Barbara Vaughn, Harper’s Bazaar, New York (1956, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Lillian Bassman began her career as a painting assistant at the Works Progress Administration, and studied fashion illustration and textile design at Pratt Institute in the late 1930s. In 1940 the famed art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, Alexey Brodovitch, offered her a scholarship to study under him. This led to her role as art director of the magazine’s spinoff Junior Bazaar. There she worked with photographers such as Richard Avedon and Robert Frank, and in 1947 began working as a freelance photographer in fashion and advertising.
Wall text from the exhibition
New Ways Of Seeing: Portraits, Intimacy, Liberation
The 1960s and 1970s saw extraordinary social change around the world. Political activism was on the rise, stemming from the anti-Vietnam War movement. There was an increased consciousness around racial equality, feminism and LGBTQ rights. Photographers also documented the popularisation of alternative ways of living, such as shared housing and collective lifestyles, with images that sometimes appeared in counterculture publications.
Australian women photographers working during this period were among the first to gain access to tertiary photography education. Among the key ideas that emerged through the work of these artists was a focus on community, personal relationships and everyday life.
This exhibition culminates in 1975, a watershed year. It marked the first International Women’s Year, inaugurated through the first UN World Conference on Women, and the height of second-wave feminism. That year the NGV staged the exhibition Six Australian Women Photographers, sometimes referenced as Wimmin, featuring work by Marion Marrison, Melanie Nunn, Fiona Hall, Melanie Le Guay, Ingeborg Tyssen and Jacqueline Mitelman. Fifty years on, many of the images from that exhibition are included here, presented alongside work from the artists’ peers.
Text from the NGV website
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, six photographs by Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947) Untitled 1973/1974 (below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, six photographs by Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947) Untitled 1973/1974 (above); and four photographs by Marion Marrison (Australian, b. 1951) including at right No title (Lady) (1973) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at right, four 1974 photographs by Fiona Hall (Australian, b. 1953) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Fiona Hall began focusing on photography in the mid 1970s, following her time as an assistant to British landscape photographer Fay Godwin. Taken with a large-format camera, Hall’s early photographs were influenced by late modernism and formalism, the study of art focusing on the visual aspects of a work. In this image, Hall plays with forms and lines, capturing the elements of the room as if they have been layered, and she positions herself so that her reflection appears as though it is hovering in space. Curator and art historian Helen Ennis writes that while we often expect self-portraiture to reveal the artist, Hall’s photograph seems to conceal her.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at right, four 1974 photographs by Fiona Hall (Australian, b. 1953); and at right, four photographs by Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009) (below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Sue Ford Carmel and Trish (1962, printed 1988) and Sue Ford Sue Pike (1963, printed 1988) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Carmel and Trish (1962, printed 1988) was taken early in Sue Ford’s artistic career, and features her friends Carmel and Trish posing in a paddock. Although Ford approached her photography seriously, her sense of humour comes through in this image, which has been described as both an experiment and a playful critique of photography. Throughout her career, Ford often turned the camera on herself, as well as on her family, friends and acquaintances, using the medium to explore social and political issues. Her work is aligned with the important wave of Australian feminist photographers active during the 1970s
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing pages from Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) and Virginia Fraser (Australian, 1947-2021) A book about Australian Women Melbourne, Outback Press, 1974 (below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) and Virginia Fraser (Australian, 1947-2021) A book about Australian Women Melbourne, Outback Press, 1974 Shaw Research Library
This book features 131 photographs by the Melbourne-based photographer Carol Jerrems, interspersed with interviews and texts edited by Virginia Fraser. Published in 1974, the year before International Women’s Year, it captures a moment in time when many Australian women were deeply engaged in global feminist ideas. Described as a ‘collective portrait’, A Book About Australian Women has become an iconic reference in Australian feminist history. It highlights a diverse group of women involved in cultural life across Australia. Some of those featured include writer Anne Summers, painter Grace Cossington Smith, film director Jennie Boddington and the Wiradjuri tennis champion Evonne Goolagong Cawley.
Carol Jerrems studied photography at Prahran College in Melbourne, winning several student awards before first exhibiting her work in the early 1970s. Jerrems collaborated with Australian artist Virginia Fraser on the 1974 publication A Book About Australian Women, a suite of portraits featuring a diverse range of subjects. This portrait was taken as part of that project, and an edition is included in the book. The work features Oodgeroo Noonuccal, previously known as Kath Walker, who was an Aboriginal rights activist, poet, WWII veteran, environmentalist and educator. Noonuccal is photographed with her pen poised at the learning centre she established on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island, Queensland) to teach visitors to the island about Aboriginal culture and Country.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, two photographs by Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946): No title (Helen at Falconer Street) (c. 1975 printed 2018); and No title (In the backyard at Falconer Street) (c. 1975 printed 2018) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ponch Hawkes began to photograph while working as a journalist for the counterculture magazine The Digger in 1972. In 1973 she moved into a communal house in Melbourne with fellow Digger contributor Helen Garner. Together they produced stories for the broadsheet, documenting new ways of living emerging in inner-city Melbourne in the early 1970s.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at right, Ponch Hawkes No title (Summer night in the backyard at Falconer Street) (c. 1975 printed 2018, below) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image, top to bottom left to right, six photographs by Ponch Hawkes: No title (Women holding hands in front of graffiti, ‘Lesbians are lovely’) (1973, printed 2018); No title (Graffiti) (1975, printed 2018); No title (Women’s Theatre Group, performing outdoors beneath a Women’s Liberation banner in the City Square) (1975, printed 2018); No title (Two women embracing, ‘Glad to be gay’) (1973, printed 2018); No title (Fitzroy graffiti) (1973, printed 2018); No title (Graffiti, ‘Braddock… not mild, but sexist’) (1973, printed 2018) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ponch Hawkes captured powerful images of lesbian love and friendship during Melbourne’s early 1970s gay liberation movement. Hawkes worked for the counterculture magazine The Digger alongside Australian writer Helen Garner. The two often collaborated on projects, producing impassioned essays and imagery that platformed communities often excluded from mainstream media. The pride and solidarity shown in these images stand in stark contrast to the extreme discrimination queer people faced during the time.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Ann Newmarch We must risk unlearning (1975, below) and at second left, Ann Newmarch Two versions (1975, below) with at right, photographs by Ponch Hawkes Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Ann Newmarch We must risk unlearning (1975) and Ann Newmarch Two versions (1975) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1938 Gelatin silver print
If there is one photographer in the history of the medium that captures the spirit of childhood, the spirit of a single city, and the spirit of life – then that photographer is the incomparable and beloved American photographer Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009).
I have posted on this exhibition before when it was displayed at Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona but I have now added many more photographs to the exhibition posting. Despite emails to the gallery I have been unable to secure any installation photographs of the exhibition.
It’s worth quoting from my text “Levittation” from the earlier posting on this exhibition for indubitably it holds true:
“In her photographs there is an (in)direct engagement with the people that surrounded her (in her early works “she often hid her camera under her coat to capture candid, unnoticed moments on the streets”), an exchange of energy from the photographer to the subject and back through the camera onto the film… evidencing a generosity of spirit on the part of the artist towards her subjects. Here there is no pressing the camera into the face of the victim a la Garry Winogrand to evince a reaction, but a genuine sense of compassion and empathy towards the people who live in the great city of New York. …
As with any great art, the artist that produced it (even as she is ambitious) seems to be without ego. She lets the picture and the emotions tell the story without the shadow of the artist getting in the way (unlike much contemporary art and photography). For the work of art to have value in itself.
Thus, her photographs speak to us directly, or not at all.”1
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Marcus Bunyan. “Levittation,” on the Art Blart website, November 28, 2025 [Online] Cited 17/04/2026
Many thankx to Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Helen Levitt was one of the first women to stand out in the world of photography, especially in the field of urban photojournalism. She always avoided imposing an explicit narrative on her images and preferred not to comment on them, letting them speak for themselves. The commitment to this discretion, far from diminishing the value of her work, is precisely one of the keys that make it so fascinating and unique.”
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1938 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York City c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1938 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) began photographing the streets of New York, her hometown, in the late 1930s, focusing mainly on poor neighbourhoods such as Spanish Harlem or the Lower East Side, where the street is the main stage of daily life. Her camera was directed primarily toward children and their street games. These childhood scenes are the central theme of a body of work that captivates us with its ability to transform everyday situations into images that convey all that life can hold of emotion, mystery, or humour and that, although lacking an explicit narrative, manage to establish an immediate connection with the viewer. Levitt’s work soon received the recognition it deserved, and as early as 1943 the Museum of Modern Art in New York organised her first solo exhibition (Photographs of Children).
In later years, she became deeply interested in film and colour photography. Regarding the former, in 1948 she collaborated on the documentary The Quiet One and co-directed In the Street, another documentary about the streets of Spanish Harlem. Both titles would be highly influential in the subsequent evolution of documentary cinema, inspiring artists such as Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol. On the other hand, after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959 to explore chromatic techniques, she began experimenting with colour photography, a medium in which she would also develop pioneering work.
A socially committed artist, Levitt was one of the first women to forge a professional career in photography. This exhibition is the first to be organised based on the entirety of her work and archives, which have only recently been made available for public consultation.
Text from the Fundación MAPFRE website
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) began photographing the streets of New York City, her hometown, in the late 1930s, focusing primarily on poor neighbourhoods like Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side, where the street plays a central role as the stage for daily life. She documented intimate and fleeting moments of human connection, becoming a key figure in 20th-century photography.
Her training began as an apprentice in a Bronx studio, and in 1934 she acquired her first camera. Shortly after, she joined the New York Film and Photo League, where she met Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose influence was decisive in Levitt’s decision to pursue photography independently.
Between 1938 and 1942, she captured some of her most iconic images, documenting everyday life in working-class neighbourhoods of New York with a spontaneous, empathetic, and unpretentious eye. Her approach, focused especially on childhood and the fleeting moments of urban life, broke with the traditional canons of photojournalism and opened new avenues for photography as a means of poetic and social expression.
In 1943, MoMA dedicated her first solo exhibition to her, solidifying her place in art history.
Although her name is associated with “street photography,” since it was precisely the streets of her hometown that provided the context for her images, throughout her career she ventured into film and visited other countries, such as Mexico.
Levitt also explored colour photography and film, pioneering both fields. She co-directed the documentary In the Street and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959 to research new colour techniques. Although a 1970 robbery resulted in the loss of much of her colour work, she resumed her photography, and MoMA screened her slides in 1974. During the following decades, she continued to photograph intermittently, returning to black and white and exploring new settings such as the New York subway. Her work, marked by ambiguity and restrained emotion, has been recognised for its ability to capture fleeting moments of human connection in complex urban environments.
The exhibition, curated by Joshua Chuang, offers a comprehensive overview of Levitt’s career through nine sections and some 220 photographs. It includes previously unseen works, as well as pieces taken in Mexico in 1941 and a significant portion of her colour work, which she began in the 1950s. In addition, her film In the Street, directed by Levitt herself along with Janice Loeb and James Agee, is presented, along with a screening of colour slides taken by the artist.
Press release from Fundación MAPFRE
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) Gypsy Boy, Harlem, New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1939 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1939 Gelatin silver print
Information
Dedicated full-time to her artistic activities, the photographer Helen Levitt (New York, 1913-2009) did not begin to gain public recognition until relatively late in life. Although her name has always been associated with “street photography,” as it was precisely the streets of her native city that provided the context for the production of her images, throughout her career Levitt made forays into film, visited other countries such as Mexico, and also focused on colour photography. Her images, almost invariably ambiguous and mysterious although not necessarily at first glance, are also characterised by their spontaneity, warmth and sensitivity. The movements and gestures of the figures captured by her lens and the communication between them transcend that inclination to “photograph children” which many critics pointed out after her first exhibition at the MoMA in 1943, entitled Helen Levitt: Photographs of Children.
Levitt’s work as a whole goes far beyond the latter aspect, revealing her acceptance of the pleasures, terrors and complexity of existence at all ages, traits often overlooked by the viewer when immersed in the harsh reality of the urban landscape.
The exhibition, the first to be devoted to the artist on the basis of the entirety of her work and archives, which have only recently become available for study, offers a broad overview of Levitt’s career through nine sections and around 220 photographs. It includes previously unexhibited images, as well as work produced in Mexico in 1941 and a large proportion of the artist’s work in colour, which she explored from the 1950s onward. It also features her film In the Street, directed by Levitt in collaboration with Janice Loeb and James Agee, and a projection of her colour slides.
Born in Brooklyn to a Russian-Jewish family, Helen Levitt dropped out of high school early and began her photography training in a Bronx studio. Influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson, she pursued independent photography, capturing everyday life in New York neighbourhoods between 1938 and 1942. Her first solo exhibition was at the MoMA in 1943. She also experimented with film, making In the Street, and with colour photography, which gained her a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959. Levitt continued to work intermittently, exploring new settings such as the subway and rural areas. Her creative output is recognised for its ability to capture moments of human connection in complex urban environments.
Key themes
Enigmatic photographs
Helen Levitt’s images possess a mysterious quality that transforms them into true visual enigmas. Her unique and highly perceptive gaze turns everyday scenes into compositions that are hard to define, creating an immediate connection with the viewer even when there is no clear narrative to explain them.
A pioneer with her own voice
Helen Levitt was one of the first women to make her way in the world of photography, especially in the field of street photography. She always avoided constructing an explicit narrative in her images and preferred not to talk about them. Far from diminishing its value, that decision is one of the key traits that make her work so interesting. Despite this characteristic of reserve, Levitt’s photographs connect with the viewer through the universal emotions they convey.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1940 Gelatin silver print
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) became a photographer in the mid-1930s after meeting Henri Cartier-Bresson and seeing his radical new pictures made with a discreet, handheld camera. By the end of the decade, she had developed a unique sensibility, one informed by Surrealism and a love of avant-garde cinema but focused on the interactions of ordinary people in the streets, sidewalks, stoops, and vacant lots of her native city.
Grounded in gritty realism but brimming with subversive humor, mischief, and pathos, Levitt’s pictures are open-ended and enigmatic, concealing as much as they reveal. Her uncanny photographs of urban children and their games brought Levitt early renown even as she remained attentive to the quiet gestures and movements of a broader swath of humanity observed with her 35mm Leica, especially in Spanish Harlem, where the activity of everyday life often spilled out of doors.
Following a months long foray in Mexico City, Levitt began to work in filmmaking, leading to a long hiatus in her photographic activity. In 1959, advances in the sensitivity colour film spurred her to take to the streets again with her Leica. She continued to photograph in colour throughout the 1970s, reverting to black-and-white film for a series of pictures taken in the New York City subway. Levitt continued to photograph intermittently until the early 1990s, when she became known as the “unofficial poet laureate” of New York and her oeuvre universally acknowledged as one of the most timeless and affecting in the history of the medium.
Joshua Chuang Comisario / Curator
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) Mexico City 1941 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1942 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1942 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York c. 1945 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1948 Gelatin silver print
In the Street, 1948 – A Film by Helen Levitt, ft. New Musical Score by Ben Model | From the Vault – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Filmed in East Harlem just after the end of World War II, “In the Street” is a dynamic, tender, and often humorous portrait of life in New York City: children dance and play in alleyways, shopkeepers sweep the sidewalks, onlookers watch from their windows. This captivating film presents the bustling theater of city life, where “every human is a poet, a masker, a warrior, a dancer.” Directed by the renowned photographer Helen Levitt, in collaboration with Janice Loeb and James Agee, and featuring a new musical score written and performed by Ben Model.
Text from the YouTube website
Early Work / Graffiti / Gypsies
Only a few examples survive from Levitt’s first year using a Leica camera. Amid the backdrop of the Great Depression, her pictures of lone figures hunched over or lying on the ground appear documentary in their impulse, while other depictions of people in urban surroundings are notably more ambivalent in their view.
In 1937, while employed by the Federal Art Project to teach at a public school in East (Spanish) Harlem, Levitt noticed the many chalk drawings and messages illicitly scrawled by children on streets and buildings on her way to work, and began to document them in all their variety, innocence, and vulgarity. She sometimes also portrayed the artists themselves posing next to their ephemeral interventions.
Around 1938, on the advice of Walker Evans, Levitt began to use a right-angle viewfinder, a device that allowed her to face one direction while pointing her camera in another. This was particularly effective in recording the uninhibited interactions of the “gypsy” families prevalent in Spanish Harlem and Yorkville. Drawn to their way of life, she also borrowed Evans’s 4 x 5-inch view camera and tripod to make portraits of “gypsy” children in their homes.
1938-1940 / Mexico City / A Way of Seeing
By 1940 Levitt had established her terrain, subject, and approach. In a rare statement, she later described her intent “to seize upon and record those apparently accidental disarrangements that nevertheless and in seeming contradiction provide a more intense apperception of reality.” Uninterested in portraying New York City as a bustling metropolis, Levitt instead saw it as an environment whose “size and varied character constantly forces into the open material for my camera.” The working class, immigrant neighbourhoods she frequented – where adults chatted on stoops, mothers and children leaned out of windows, and children were left to their own devices – proved to be an especially fertile ground for her work.
In 1941, again inspired by Cartier-Bresson’s example, Levitt, a reluctant traveller, went to Mexico City with a friend to photograph there. Initially struggling with the challenge of working in new environment, she was eventually able to find her artistic footing, producing a body of work that at once acknowledged rawer social realities while locating a subtle lyricism unique to the city and its people. It would be her only trip abroad.
Upon her return to New York City, Levitt picked up where she left off, picking up on more sober themes of melancholy, alienation, and what she referred to as “the deep repressions of the unyoung.” After having photographed for a decade, Levitt collaborated with her friend, the writer and critic James Agee, to edit and sequence a book of her New York photographs. Envisioning the project as an urban counterpart to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, his 1941 collaboration with Walker Evans, Agee wrote an extensive essay to accompany Levitt’s pictures that heralded their lyric qualities, the sum of which presented “unified view of the world, an insistent but irrefutable manifesto.” After a series of setbacks, the book, eventually given the title A Way of Seeing, was not published until nearly two decades later in 1965.
Color / Metro / Anys 1980
In 1959, Levitt was granted a Guggenheim fellowship to experiment with “the latest techniques in colour photography.” Her Leica loaded with colour slide film, she walked some of the same streets she had frequented in the 30s and 40s, newly attentive to the chromatic character of her compositions. After the bulk of her slides were stolen by a burglar in 1970, Levitt redoubled her efforts, photographing throughout the decade with renewed zeal, developing an intuitive system of colour that was at once transporting and transparent. In 1974, a continuous projection of forty of Levitt’s slides were featured at MoMA in New York, after which she began to realise select images as dye transfer prints.
Around the same time, Levitt also decided to revisit the subterranean theater of New York City subway as a site to make pictures, having served as a decoy for Walker Evans’s subway project work more than three decades earlier. With her subjects largely stationary in train cars and platforms, Levitt attended to the nuances of expression and gesture, recording quiet dramas amid unflattering light and cramped quarters.
From the 1980s onwards, Levitt continued to photograph, but only intermittently, working mainly in black and white, both in the city and outside it.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1975 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York (Woman and taxi) 1982 Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York Nd Gelatin silver print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1971 Dye transfer print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1972 Dye transfer print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1974 Dye transfer print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) Cat next to red car, New York 1973 Type C print 18 x 12 inches
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York 1976 Dye transfer print
Helen Levitt (American, 1913-2009) New York City (phone booth) 1988 Dye transfer print
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