Depth of Field Exhibition Reception

Students, faculty and staff are invited to celebrate the Depth of Field exhibition and the arrival of Beth Saunders, the new director and curator of UMBC's Special Collections. She previously served as a curator at the the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition Depth of Field presents approximately one hundred images acquired over the last ten years by UMBC’s Photography Collections through generous gifts from donors and artists. The photographs on view highlight the breadth and depth of the collection and illustrate the range of forms, technology, and artists that historically shaped the medium and are presently impacting its ongoing evolution.

Featured artists in the exhibition include Albert Arthur Allen, Laurie Brown, Kristin Capp, Clarence Carvell BFA '93, Chim (David Seymour), William Eggleston, Donna Ferrato, Robert Fichter, Todd Forsgren, Peggy Fox, Sally Gall, Ralph Gibson, Penny Harris, Sam Holden, Irina Ionesco, Walter Iooss, Lotte Jacobi, N. Jay Jaffee, Brian Jones, Nate Larson, David S. Lavine, Alen MacWeeney, Mary Ellen Mark, Fred McDarrah, Dorothy Norman, David Seltzer, Steve Szabo, Barbara Traub, Peter Turnley, and Robert VonSternberg. Additionally, the exhibition features daguerreotypes, painted photographs, and post-mortem photographs. Depth of Field is curated by Emily Hauver, who is curator of exhibition for the gallery.

The Photography Collections at UMBC contain more than two million photographs, with an emphasis on the formats, processes, genres, and technological evolution of the medium and images demonstrating the social impact of photography. Works include photography that has influenced public thought or legislation such as Lewis Hine’s photographs of child labor and the mining photographs (1870–1895) of George Bretz. These photographs have been used by scholars from around the world and have been loaned to venerable institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. Collection holdings also illustrate the development of the aesthetic principles of photography. Works by Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Berenice Abbott, A. Aubrey Bodine, Bill Brandt, Eileen Cowin, Barbara Crane, Judy Dater, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Roland Freeman, Lotte Jacobi, Alfred Cheney Johnston, Stephen Marc, David Plowden, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Walter Rosenblum, Jaromir Stephany (professor of visual arts, deceased), Steve Szabo, James Van Der Zee, Edward Weston, Minor White, members of the Photo-Secession, and hundreds of other artists are represented. Also noteworthy are the hundreds of thousands of newspaper and wire service photographs from the Baltimore Sun and Underwood & Underwood. These photographs, along with other images held such as panoramic views of Maryland by the Hughes Company, constitute a great resource for study of Maryland history.

Read more about the exhibition here.

Image: Todd Forsgren, Adelaide’s Warbler (Setophaga adelaidae), 2009, from the series Ornithological Photographs, Accession no. 2016-07-001