An American Century of Photography:
From Dry Plate to Digital:
The Hallmark Photographic Collection
Denver Art Museum
June 29 - September 29, 2002
A roar of cheers cascades down from the throngs of adoring fans as the legendary Babe Ruth steps up to the plate. The sun glistens off the shiny black bars that protect a stretching tigress from her Central Park surroundings. The clay-caked fingers of a seasoned potter carefully smooth the rounded sides of a newly formed masterpiece. These are just three of the 242 photographic treasures celebrated in An American Century of Photography: From Dry Plate to Digital: The Hallmark Photographic Collection, on view at the Denver Art Museum.
The exhibition showcases a journey through more than 100 years of photography and includes prints by more than 200 photographers, taken from the mid-1880s to the present. An American Century of Photography demonstrates the technological milestones that transformed the medium of photography and documents the social changes that greatly influenced American culture.
Organized by Keith F. Davis, fine art programs director for Hallmark, the exhibition is derived entirely from the Hallmark Photographic Collection, one of the most renowned holdings of its kind in the world with some 5,000 works. Davis--in conjunction with John Pultz, the Denver Art Museum's consulting curator of photography and new media--is directing the exhibition in Denver.
An American Century of Photography celebrates the artistic and thematic treasures of American photography and showcases both familiar and unexpected images. Photographs by renowned and lesser-known artists illustrate the depth and range of modern American photography as a whole. While the exhibition focuses primarily on American themes and subjects, the international sharing of ideas is represented through works by a few leading Europeans.
By about 1890, the art and impact of photography in American culture had been transformed by several important developments: the replacement of the earlier wet-collodion process with the less difficult dry-plate and roll-film technologies; the introduction of the hand camera; the rise of amateur photography; and the widespread reproduction of photographs in magazines and newspapers. These changes greatly increased the medium's applications and made it even more important in American life. Today, the camera-generated image is undergoing another transformation through the impact of electronic imaging systems and the computer. An American Century of Photography celebrates the era between those monumental technological shifts.
The exhibition is presented in four chronological sections, with each section covering a period of approximately a quarter-century. Works are arranged in thematic arrangements that highlight stylistic similarities or contrasts while highlighting the impact of particular friendships or influences.
* A Reluctant Modernism: 1890-1915--High-speed photographic work from the late 1880s, large-format commercial pieces, pictorialist images by members of the Alfred Stieglitz circle and many other works from turn-of-the-century photographers are the focus of the first segment. Artists include Eadweard Muybridge, F. Holland Day, William Rau, Clarence H. White, Karl Struss, Lewis Hine and Bertha E. Jaques.
* Abstraction and Realism: 1915-1940--The second segment includes an overview of the work of the Clarence White School, important prints from the photographic avant-garde of the late 1910s and early 1920s, American works spurred by the "New Vision" of the 1920's European avant-garde, along with pieces devoted to technology and the machine, early photojournalism and Depression era images. Artists in this section include Paul Outerbridge, Alfred Stieglitz, Morton Schamberg, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Man Ray, William Mortensen and Walker Evans.
* From Public to Private Concerns: 1940-1965--The third segment of the show begins with a selection of images from World War II, followed by a series of urban images that convey the mixed artistic mood of the postwar period. Also included are some of the most subjective works of the time, and fashion and portrait images exemplifying the art of applied photography. Artists include Weegee, Leon Levinstein, Frederick Sommer, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Ray Metzker and Duane Michals.
* The Image Transformed: 1965-Present--Section four begins with photojournalistic icons of the era's political and social turmoil and continues by addressing a number of themes including the response to social discord, the influence of contemporary artistic concerns, the postmodern concerns of the 1980s and themes of identity and the body. This section explores the most advanced technical possibilities for the medium and concludes with groups of photos devoted to two themes of continuing artistic importance--landscape and the domestic realm. Artists in this section include Charles Moore, Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Campus, Robert Adams, Lynn Davis and Sally Mann.
This exhibition is organized by, and from the holdings of, The Hallmark Photographic Collection, Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri. Denver is the final stop of a seven-city U.S. tour for An American Century of Photography.
A color catalog by exhibition curator Keith F. Davis accompanies the show. The book, which features nearly 500 illustrations, offers a new, comprehensive history of modern photography.
DENVER ART MUSEUM
13th Avenues & Acoma Street, Downtown Denver
