An interesting article on pre and post-war European pictures in the context of museums of photography.
David
June 14, 2024
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An interesting article, but I have a little quibble.
When I worked at the MOD in Whitehall in 1976, I often visited the Photographers Gallery, which predated the gallery in Germany by about three years.
Thinking back to the early seventies, I seem to remember that there was quite a lively interest in photography.
I think the Guardian may have been a little lax on the fact checking.
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The other thing I recall experiencing is that the Museum of Modern Art was exhibiting the work of Alfred Steiglitz and other photographers in their permanent collection before 1992, the date given for the Metropolitan Museum to show a serious interest.
David
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From Wikipedia regarding photography at MOMA
The MoMA photography collection consists of over 25,000 works by photographers, journalists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and amateurs, and is regarded as one of the most important in the world.[86]
The Department of Photography was founded by Beaumont Newhall in 1940 and developed a world-renowned art photography collection under Edward Steichen (curator 1947–1961). Steichen's most notable and lasting exhibit, named The Family of Man, was seen by 9 million people. In 2003, the Family of Man photographic collection was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in recognition of its historical value.[87]
Steichen's hand-picked successor, John Szarkowski (curator 1962–1991), guided the department with several notable exhibitions, including 1967s New Documents that presented photographs by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand and is said to have "represented a shift in emphasis"[88] and "identified a new direction in photography: pictures that seemed to have a casual, snapshot-like look and subject matter so apparently ordinary that it was hard to categorize".[89][90] Under Szarkowski, it focused on a more traditionally modernist approach to the medium, one that emphasized documentary images and orthodox darkroom techniques.
Probably photographic prints started to become unaffordable around 1974, thanks to the art gallery industry, which is a different matter.