Legacy of Light: Seven Masters in Depth

November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997

The main Legacy of Light exhibition offers one photographic work by each of 131 photographers. This companion exhibition offers groups of works by seven major figures in the history of photography. The museum's collecting has been comprehensive, in order to build a collection that shows the breadth of the photographic tradition--but the museum also has made sure to build deep holdings of the works of the most important figures in the history of photography. Presented in Gallery 102 in the corridor near the Museum Cafe, this show offers five works by the great American landscapist Ansel Adams, who set an unsurpassed standard for the technical mastery of black-and-white photographic printing; four large albumen prints from wet collodion negatives by the 19th-century French photographer Adolphe Braun; four beautiful portraits made using the same wet collodion process by the British Victorian-era photographer Juila Margaret Cameron; five prints by the adventurous contemporary American artist Ray K. Metzker; five examples showing the range and mastery of Alfred Stieglitz, who pioneered the acceptance of photography as fine art in this country; five important works by another great and influential American of this century, Paul Strand; and five salted paper prints by the English inventor of the first positive/negative process, the Calotype, William Henry Fox Talbot. The selections attest to the exalted stature of these artists and affirm, in conjunction with the main exhibition, that the museum's photography collection is one of great depth as well as breadth.

See main Legacy of Light article

Adolphe Braun (French, 1812-1877)
The Ramesseum, Thebes, 1869
Albumen print from wet collodion negative, 7-3/4 x 9-3/4 inches
Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Jerald Brodkey in Honor of Brenda and Evan Turner. 1992.244