Photography

The millions of photographs in the Museum's collections compose a vast mosaic of the nation's history. Photographs accompany most artifact collections. Thousands of images document engineering projects, for example, and more record the steel, petroleum, and railroad industries.

Some 150,000 images capture the history, art, and science of photography. Nineteenth-century photography, from its initial development by W. H. F. Talbot and Louis Daguerre, is especially well represented and includes cased images, paper photographs, and apparatus. Glass stereographs and news-service negatives by the Underwood & Underwood firm document life in America between the 1890s and the 1930s. The history of amateur photography and photojournalism are preserved here, along with the work of 20th-century masters such as Richard Avedon and Edward Weston. Thousands of cameras and other equipment represent the technical and business side of the field.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1969
maker
Powers, Mark James
ID Number
2013.0222.32
catalog number
2013.0222.32
accession number
2013.0222
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964-02-04
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.033A
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1961
maker
Kertész, André
ID Number
PG.69.162.8
accession number
282922
catalog number
69.162.8
Silver print of an untitled Ray K. Metzker photograph with abstract composition.In the collection of the National Museum of American History there are twelve photographic works by the American photographer Ray K. Metzker (1931).
Description (Brief)
Silver print of an untitled Ray K. Metzker photograph with abstract composition.
Description
In the collection of the National Museum of American History there are twelve photographic works by the American photographer Ray K. Metzker (1931). These pieces by Metzker were acquired by the Smithsonian in 1970 after they were on display in the “Persistence of Vision” exhibition at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Metzker’s photographs range from depictions of urban street scenes to abstraction, and vary in size from 8x10 inch prints to 30x32 inch assembled pieces of over one hundred individual photographs.
After working as an assistant for various portrait and commercial photography studios, Metzker enrolled as a student at the Illinois Institute of Design in 1956. Founded by former Bauhaus instructor Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in 1937, the Illinois Institute of Design’s faculty included influential photographers such as Harry Callahan (see catalog numbers PG69.40.01-10), Aaron Siskind (see catalog numbers PG69.114.01-10), and Frederick Sommer. Metzker has often cited these instructors as having a great impact on his artistic outlook and passion for photography. In a 1983 conversation with curator Anne Tucker, Metzker said, “their experience and dedication is something you had to respect, and they communicated to me how really beautiful and of what great meaning a photograph or photography could be. They made photography a noble endeavor.” While at the Illinois Institute of Design, Metzker became fascinated with the urban environment of Chicago, which became the subject matter for most of his early photographs. After graduation, Metzker’s experimental methods were noticed by curators and included in exhibitions such as the “Persistence of Vision,” where he was included with fellow graduates such as photographer John Wood.
Metzker’s work utilizes the technical components of the medium of photography to create new and unique imagery. Instead of using the camera to create a traditional single frame photograph, Metzker has been known to use an entire roll of film to create one composite image. This is seen in his photograph Untitled Composite Print (Signs, Trucks, etc.), PG69.205.1. In this example, Metzker photographs a series of actions instead of a singular event. Metzker offers the viewer information about a specific location over a span of time while simultaneously abstracting the image by overlapping the individual film frames. Another demonstration of this time-based aspect of Metzker’s work is Untitled (Four Frames and a Film Strip) PG69.205.4, where various pedestrians are seen passing through the same environment throughout the day. Created in 1964, this photograph breaks the traditional rectangular format entirely with multiple frames printed on top of each other and the orientation of the print skewed to create a diagonal composition.
Metzker constantly tries to invent new ways to investigate the formal aspects of photography. This has led him to experiment with multiple camera formats and a variety of different printing methods. He has been known to spend extensive time in the darkroom, experimenting with processes that may never lead to a complete finished project. Even when Metzker depicts more conventional subject matter, such as a figure or cityscape, he eliminates information in the photograph to focus on light and shadow, line and form. An example of this is his 1963 photograph Untitled (Stripe on Pavement) PG69.205.2. Metzker photographs a segment of a city crosswalk, but through perspective and composition, creates an image that more closely resembles an abstract gestural mark than a typical city scene.
Metzker is an important figure to study in regards to evaluating the influence that Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Illinois Institute of Design had on the genre of American street photography in the 1960s. The Bauhaus tradition of experimentation can be seen throughout much of Metzker’s work. For Metzker, photography is a process that involves multiple steps before the final image is created.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964
maker
Metzker, Ray K.
ID Number
PG.69.205.09
catalog number
69.205.9
accession number
288848
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1963-12-30
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.038B
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1963-03-11
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.045B
catalog number
66.64.045B
accession number
264003
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1963-10-03
depicted (sitter)
Louis, Joe
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.039B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964-01022
1964-01-022
1964-01-22
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.048B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964-03-06
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.023B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1965-09-13
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.064B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1961
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.014B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1960
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.076B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1960
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.075B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1963-09-30
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.025B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1962-01-03
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.006B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964-02-24
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.019B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
date made
1964-01-13
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.66.64.001B
accession number
264003
catalog number
66.64
Gelatin silver print, panorama. Signed, dated and titled on verso. Group of thirty people, all ages and sexes, standing on a suburban street corner. One story, tract homes in background with stone yards. Two cars on the street in the back, right edge of photograph.
Description (Brief)
Gelatin silver print, panorama. Signed, dated and titled on verso. Group of thirty people, all ages and sexes, standing on a suburban street corner. One story, tract homes in background with stone yards. Two cars on the street in the back, right edge of photograph. A dog facing away from the camera in the front, right hand corner.
Description
The Anne Noggle collection in the Photographic History Collection consists of four panoramic photographs signed and dated between 1969 and 1972. The subjects are: a neighborhood group, an elderly woman in a kitchen, a row of thirty-three mailboxes and two waitresses behind a lunch counter. The negatives were made using a Panon 35mm camera.
Anne Noggle was born in 1922 in Evanston, IL and spent her formative years living there with her mother and sister—two women who would become important characters in Noggle’s photography.
Prior to her photography career, Noggle led a markedly different life. In 1940, with her student pilot license in hand, she became a pilot and eventually a flight instructor as a Women’s Air Force Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II. At the conclusion of the war, Noggle taught flying, joined an aerial circus and worked as a crop duster. Art garnered Noggle’s attention while she was on active duty in the U.S. Air Force in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Stationed in Paris, she spent much of her free time at the Louvre. Forced into early retirement due to emphysema caused by crop dusting, Noggle registered for college as an art history major at the University of New Mexico in 1959, at the age of thirty-eight.
Anne Noggle’s early photographs utilize the 35mm Panon camera. Most of these 140° photographs are of an aging woman and her surroundings. In Janice Zita Grover’s introduction to Silver Lining: Photographs by Anne Noggle, she writes that the panoramic format is characteristic “to distort space in such a way that subjects distant from the lens appear flattened against deep space; between this effect and the necessity for reading the image side to side, the format gets as close as the still camera can to the implied narrative unfolding of a panoramic opening shot in a film.”
By the early 1970s, however, Noggle moved on to wide-angle portraits featuring herself, her mother, sister and her mother’s friends. It is for these photographs that Noggle is most known. Her interest in women and the aging process is exemplified by self-portraits of Noggle’s own face-lifts and images of her aging body.
Noggle has been awarded two NEA grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
date made
1969
maker
Noggle, Anne
ID Number
PG.74.6.1
accession number
1979.0045
catalog number
74.6.1
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture.
Description
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture. She recorded this unconventional time of Anti-War demonstrations in California, communes, Love-Ins, peace marches and concerts, as well as her family life as she became a wife and mother. The photographs were collected by William Yeingst and Shannon Perich in a cross-unit collecting collaboration. Together they selected over two hundred photographs relevant to photographic history, cultural history, domestic life and social history.
Law’s portraiture and concert photographs include Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Lovin Spoonful and Peter, Paul and Mary. She also took several of Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company, including the photograph used to create the poster included in the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s exhibition 1001 Days and Nights in American Art. Law and other members of the Hog Farm were involved in the logistics of setting up the well-known musical extravaganza, Woodstock. Her photographs include the teepee poles going into the hold of the plane, a few concert scenes and amenities like the kitchen and medical tent. Other photographs include peace rallies and concerts in Haight-Ashbury, Coretta Scott King speaking at an Anti-War protest and portraits of Allen Ginsburg and Timothy Leary. From her life in New Mexico the photographs include yoga sessions with Yogi Bhajan, bus races, parades and other public events. From life on the New Buffalo Commune, there are many pictures of her family and friends taken during meal preparation and eating, farming, building, playing, giving birth and caring for children.
Ms. Law did not realize how important her photographs were while she was taking them. It was not until after she divorced her husband, left the farm for Santa Fe and began a career as a photographer that she realized the depth of history she recorded. Today, she spends her time writing books, showing her photographs in museums all over the United States and making documentaries. In 1990, her video documentary, “Flashing on the Sixties,” won several awards.
A selection of photographs was featured in the exhibition A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1964–1971, at the National Museum of American History October 1998-April 1999.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1967
date printed
1998
maker
Law, Lisa
ID Number
1998.0139.089
catalog number
1998.0139.089
accession number
1998.0139
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1944-1961
maker
Ruohomaa, Kosti
ID Number
PG.007357
catalog number
7357
accession number
252971
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
before 1962
ID Number
PG.006416
accession number
241888
catalog number
6416
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1961
maker
Avedon, Richard
ID Number
PG.67.102.093NE
catalog number
67.102.093NE
accession number
270571
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
February 1963
ID Number
PG.67.102.046N
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture.
Description
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture. She recorded this unconventional time of Anti-War demonstrations in California, communes, Love-Ins, peace marches and concerts, as well as her family life as she became a wife and mother. The photographs were collected by William Yeingst and Shannon Perich in a cross-unit collecting collaboration. Together they selected over two hundred photographs relevant to photographic history, cultural history, domestic life and social history.
Law’s portraiture and concert photographs include Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Lovin Spoonful and Peter, Paul and Mary. She also took several of Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company, including the photograph used to create the poster included in the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s exhibition 1001 Days and Nights in American Art. Law and other members of the Hog Farm were involved in the logistics of setting up the well-known musical extravaganza, Woodstock. Her photographs include the teepee poles going into the hold of the plane, a few concert scenes and amenities like the kitchen and medical tent. Other photographs include peace rallies and concerts in Haight-Ashbury, Coretta Scott King speaking at an Anti-War protest and portraits of Allen Ginsburg and Timothy Leary. From her life in New Mexico the photographs include yoga sessions with Yogi Bhajan, bus races, parades and other public events. From life on the New Buffalo Commune, there are many pictures of her family and friends taken during meal preparation and eating, farming, building, playing, giving birth and caring for children.
Ms. Law did not realize how important her photographs were while she was taking them. It was not until after she divorced her husband, left the farm for Santa Fe and began a career as a photographer that she realized the depth of history she recorded. Today, she spends her time writing books, showing her photographs in museums all over the United States and making documentaries. In 1990, her video documentary, “Flashing on the Sixties,” won several awards.
A selection of photographs was featured in the exhibition A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1964–1971, at the National Museum of American History October 1998-April 1999.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1967
date printed
1998
maker
Law, Lisa
ID Number
1998.0139.054
catalog number
1998.0139.054
accession number
1998.0139

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