Harn opens two photography exhibitions this month

September 7, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Harn Museum of Art is showcasing some of the world’s best-known photographers this fall in its upcoming photography gallery installation and a large temporary exhibition of 20th-century photography in its main exhibition hall.

Beginning Tuesday, “Highlights from the Photography Collection” will feature 38 photographs by 26 photographers, with a focus on 19th century, pictorial and contemporary photographers. Views of the virgin territory of the American West in the 1860s and 1870s by Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins and Roscoe Savage contrast with contemporary views of similar Western landscapes by Richard Misrach and Robert Adams. Light as subject matter is illustrated in works by Clarence White and contemporary artist Sol Lewitt.

“Photographic Formalities: From Ansel Adams to Weegee” opens Sept. 28, with 215 works by 77 international 20th-century Modernist photographers, including multiple works by masters such as Ansel Adams, Weegee, Edward Weston, Walker Evans and Ruth Bernhard. Lesser-known artists, such as Jan Saudek, James Nachtwey and Marion Post-Wolcott, will also be featured. These photographers, whether consciously like Adams or intuitively like Weegee, have followed the path of 20th-century Modernism as practiced in other media—that the “form follows function.” Their photographs look like photographs and maximize the unique properties of the camera and print processes. The works are on loan from a private Florida family collection.

Both exhibitions are curated by Harn Curator of Photography Tom Southall. “Photographic Formalities: From Ansel Adams to Weegee” will be on view through Jan. 6, 2008, and is made possible by the 150th Anniversary Cultural Plaza Endowment. “Highlights from the Photography Collection” will be on view through Feb. 24, 2008, and is made possible by J. Dustin Curbow and Paul D. Zirakian of Citigroup SmithBarney.

Admission to the Harn Museum is free.