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Nancy Newhall: A Literacy of Images
September 19, 2008 - January 25, 2009
The Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego, California's Balboa Park is presenting Nancy Newhall: A Literacy of Images. MoPA is originating the first-time-ever major retrospective and companion publication of this remarkable woman and major contributor to the history of photography. Held in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Newhall's birth, the exhibition will be on view at MoPA September 19, 2008 through January 25, 2009. Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, A Literacy of Images will include over 120 images representing the work of Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, Eliot Porter, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model, and Barbara Morgan. The exhibition will also include period publications by Nancy Newhall about these photographers, alongside personal papers and candid photographs.
As a writer, curator and photographer, Nancy Newhall played a major role in legitimizing photography as a fine art. As founding member of Aperture and important contributor to the publication, Newhall was a prolific writer about the evolving role of photography and visionary thinker about the then new medium of television. One of the first to write about visual literacy -- the importance of reading images and how text can change the meaning of images -- Newhall was decades ahead of her time. Her writings elevated the focus and discussion of photography. She challenged one to see the many possibilities that exist in an image and demonstrated the importance of combining images with words.
Nancy Newhall worked closely with husband Beaumont Newhall -- the Museum of Modern Art's first photography curator -- and with many of the well-known photographers of her day, e.g., Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Paul Strand, Brassai, Alfred Stieglitz, Barbara Morgan and Minor White. A strong and independent individual, Newhall helped define fine art photography in America during the first half of the twentieth century. For a period between 1942-1945, while Beaumont was on active duty in the Air Force in World War II, Nancy substituted for him as the acting curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1974, Newhall met with an untimely death following a rafting accident on the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park. Thirty years after her tragic death, Newhall's legacy continues to shape and enlighten the field of photography and lens-based imagery though her photographic work remains relatively unknown. "This is an important project for many reasons. It demonstrates MoPA's commitment to research in the field of photography. Nancy Newhall is a very important figure in defining photography as art in this country and this is the first project covering the breadth and depth of her contribution to the field," says Deborah Klochko, MoPA Director.
Running concurrently at MoPA is Picturing the Process: Landscape Through Time and Space on view July 12, 2008 - February 1, 2009 and MoPA's youth exhibition, Writing with Light, on view September 13, 2008 - February 1, 2009.
Nancy Newhall: A Literacy of Images is generously sponsored in part by the Bernard Lee Schwartz Family Foundation, Farrell Family Foundation, RBC Wealth Management and the National Endowment for the Arts.
(above: Nancy Newhall, Chimayo - The Santuario, New Mexico, 1951, gelatin silver print, courtesy of Scheinbaum & Russek, Ltd. Copyright © 2008 the Estate of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, all rights reserved. Permission to reproduce courtesy of Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
(above: Nancy Newhall, Tide Pool, Pt. Lobos, California, 1945, gelatin silver print, courtesy of Scheinbaum & Russek, Ltd. Copyright © 2008 the Estate of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, all rights reserved. Permission to reproduce courtesy of Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
(above: Nancy Newhall. Fire Escapes, 1942, gelatin silver print, collection Museum of Photographic Arts Copyright © 2008 the Estate of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, all rights reserved. Permission to reproduce courtesy of Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
Statement by Curator
Painter, writer, curator and photographer, Nancy (Wynne Parker) Newhall played a major role in legitimizing photography as a fine art. A founding member of Aperture magazine, and an important contributor to the publication, Newhall wrote extensively about the evolving role of photography, and was visionary in her thinking about the then "new medium" of television.
As she wrote in her essay "The Caption," from the first issue of Aperture in 1952, "... the old literacy of words is dying and a new literacy of images is being born." Newhall goes on to speculate, "Perhaps the printed page will disappear and even our records will be kept in images and sounds." One of the first to write about visual literacy -- the importance of reading images and the ability of text to change the meaning of images -- she was decades ahead of her time.
Nancy Newhall worked closely with her husband Beaumont Newhall and with many of the well-known photographers of her day including, Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-Brassai, and Minor White. A strong and independent individual, Newhall helped define photography as a fine art in America during the first half of the twentieth century. More than thirty years after her tragic death in 1974, Newhall's legacy still shapes and informs the field of photography and lens-based imagery.
About Deborah Klochko
Deborah Klochko is the Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts. She has taught, lectured, and written extensively on photography and has curated more than thirty exhibitions throughout her career; was executive editor of see, an award-winning journal of visual culture; and is the founder of Speaking of Light: Oral Histories of American Photographers.. She is the author of Picturing Eden and co-authored Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts and Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge.
Formerly the director of The Friends of Photography, located at the Ansel Adams Center, she has also worked at the California Museum of Photography; the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Please click here to view wall texts for the exhibition, plus additional images
Please click here to view the checklist for the exhibition, plus additional images
Please click here to view Nancy Newhall chronology, plus additional images
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