Surveys of historic American photography

Surveys of Historic American Photography

Online information about American photography from sources other than Resource Library

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

American Photographs, 1845 to Now is a 2016-17 exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum, which "...brings together more than 70 photographs drawn from the Amon Carter's permanent collection. Spanning the history of the medium, the works reflect the diversity of photographic practices in the United States that grew along with the country's industrial development beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Covering 170 years of photography's history, from unique daguerreotype portraits to large-scale contemporary works, the exhibition provides a glance at photography's central role in recording the people, places, and events that have come to define the United States." Article includes link to 20-page guide to the photographic process. Accessed 11/16

East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography is a 2017 exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art https://noma.org which says: "This landmark exhibition is the first to exclusively explore a vivid chapter of America's photographic history -- nineteenth-century American landscape photography made east of the Mississippi River." Also see press release Accessed 12/17

Frame by Frame: Photographic Series and Portfolios from the Collection, an exhibit held at the Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy February 2 - April 14, 2013, Accessed August, 2015.

In Time We Shall Know Ourselves: Photographs by Raymond Smith is a 2018 exhibit at the Huntington Museum of Art which says: "In the summer of 1974, Ray Smith set out from New Haven, Connecticut, with a friend and two medium-format, twin-lens cameras to see and photograph America. They traveled in a VW Beetle for six weeks until the car broke down in Kansas City. Smith then returned home and took a job taking photographs of students around the country for their campus identification cards. Between assignments and during breaks he continued photographing for this project through September." Also see touring info with thumbnail photos. Accessed 2/18

It's Only a Paper Moon: Souvenir Photography in America, 1870-1950 is a 2017 exhibit at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum which says: "Shortly after the invention of photography in the mid 19th century, tourists began documenting their travels with souvenir photo portraits. Photo studios were hugely popular attractions at state fairs, carnivals, and downtown arcades. Printed on penny postcards these images were mailed across the country to family and friends." Accessed 3/17

The Logic of the Copy: Four Decades of Photography in Print is a 2017 exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum which says: "The Logic of the Copy: Four Decades of Photography in Print spans the period from 1960 through the early 2000s and highlights the influence of artists as diverse as Robert Heinecken, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, James Turrell, and Tacita Dean who began to integrate photography with text and the graphic arts. Also see press release Accessed 1/18

The Metropolitan Museum of Art website section Timeline of Art History includes

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) and American Photography by Lisa Hostetler;

Art and Photography: 1990s-Present;

Art and Photography: The 1980s;

Body/Landscape: Photography and the Reconfiguration of the Sculptural Object;

Early Documentary Photography;

Group f/64 by Lisa Hostetler;

Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography by Mia Fineman;

The New Documentary Tradition in Photography by Lisa Hostetler;

Photography and Everyday Life in America, 194560 by Lisa Hostetler;

Photography in the Expanded Field: Painting, Performance, and the Neo-Avant-Garde;

Pictorialism in America by Lisa Hostetler;

The Structure of Photographic Metaphors by Lisa Hostetler.

Accessed August, 2015.

Paper Promises: Early American Photography is a 2018 exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum which says: "This exhibition explores the formative years of photography in nineteenth-century America. Featuring rare photographs and negatives as well as iconic images from the Gold Rush and Civil War, it traces early experimentation with photography on paper. The show also reveals how photographic reproduction helped shape perceptions of the United States during a critical period of political tension and territorial expansion." Also see press release Accessed 3/18

The People's America: Selections from the Henry Holmes Smith Archive, an online exhibit from the Indiana University Art Museum. Includes artist biographies. Accessed February, 2015.

Polaroids: Personal, Private, Painterly: Photographs from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson is a 2018 exhibit at the Bellevue Art Museum which says: "For over two decades, Seattle-based Robert E. Jackson has been a serious collector of mass popular photography and photographic ephemera." Accessed 11/18

Pulitzer Prize Photographs is a 2019 exhibit at the Gilcrease Museum which says: "Pulitzer Prize Photographs, from the Newseum in Washington D.C., brings history to life with the most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs ever assembled, with images of every prize-winning entry dating back to 1942, when the award was first presented." Accessed 5/19

Reframing America: Photography through the Eyes of Immigrants, an educator's guide from the Center for Creative Photography. Includes biographical information on artists who came to America between 1920-1950. Accessed August, 2015.

Technique and Vision: A Snapshot of Photography's Evolution is a 2017 exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts which says: "Selections from the permanent collection of the Museum will illustrate the development of photography and illuminate the tools and techniques photographers have used to express their artistic visions." Accessed 5/17

Reality Makes Them Dream: American Photography, 1929-1941 is a 2023 exhibit at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University which says: "The work of five photographers featured in the Capital Group Foundation Photography Collection at the Cantor Arts Center -- Ansel Adams, John Gutmann, Helen Levitt, Wright Morris, and Edward Weston -- comprises the core of the exhibition. Woven into this display is a diverse selection of photographs by their contemporaries that present new narratives about artists and images, from the iconic to the overlooked. Against the typical history of 1930s photography that views the work of this period as primarily documentary, this exhibition contends that a key goal for artists of this period was to use photography to ignite the imagination." Accessed 3/24

Vantage Points: Contemporary Photography from the Whitney Museum of American Art is a 2021 exhibit at the Taubman Museum of Art which says: "Organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, this exhibition features a selection of photographic works from the 1970s to the mid-2000s that highlights how photography has been used to represent individuals, places, and narratives. Drawn exclusively from the Whitney's permanent collection, this presentation includes approximately twenty artists, including Diane Arbus, Gregory Crewdson, William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, Lyle Ashton Harris, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lorna Simpson, Andy Warhol, and Carrie Mae Weems." Accessed 9/21

You Are Here: A Brief History of Photography and Place is a 2019 exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art which says: You Are Here both embraces and challenges the photograph's role as a faithful record of place, examining photography's successes and failures in rendering, and sharing, fragments of the world. With an array of more than seventy illuminating photographs-some of which are on view for the first time-this exhibition traces a history of photography and place from the origins of the medium to the present, considering photography's visual and material characteristics along the way" Accessed 7/19

Art Movements Through Photography is a comprehensive 1-hour, 49-minutes online video lecture by Eileen Rafferty.

Return to online topical information about American photography

Return to Topics in American Representational Art

See our Museums Explained to learn about the "inner workings" of art museums and the functions of staff members. In the exhibitions section find out how to get the most out of a museum visit. See definitions for a glossary of museum-related words used in articles.

To help you plan visits to institutions exhibiting American art when traveling see Sources of Articles Indexed by State within the United States.

Unless otherwise noted, all text and image materials relating to the above institutional source were provided by that source. Before reproducing or transmitting text or images please read Resource Library's user agreement.

Our catalogues provide many more useful resources.

American Representational Art has links to dozens of topics.

Distinguished Artists is a national registry of historic artists.

About Resource Library

Resource Library is a free online publication of nonprofit Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO). Since 1997, Resource Library and its predecessor Resource Library Magazine have cumulatively published online 1,300+ articles and essays written by hundreds of identified authors, thousands of other texts not attributable to named authors, plus 24,000+ images, all providing educational and informational content related to American representational art. Texts and related images are provided almost exclusively by nonprofit art museum, gallery and art center sources.

All published materials provide educational and informational content to students, scholars, teachers and others. Most published materials relate to exhibitions. Materials may include whole exhibition gallery guides, brochures or catalogues or texts from them, perviously published magazine or journal articles, wall panels and object labels, audio tour scripts, play scripts, interviews, blogs, checklists and news releases, plus related images.

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