With nearly a million examples, the collection tells the story of photography over two and a half centuries, helping us understand why and how pictures are made and the important role the medium has had in shaping visual culture. Rightly celebrated for rich holdings in 19th-century Asian, Native American, maritime and early American photographs, it also includes modern and contemporary art and represents hundreds of different techniques, from paper negative to digital.
The collection began with the acquisition in 1840 of Vincent Chevalier's Daguerreotype of Pont Neuf in Paris, made in 1839, the year of photography's invention. Since that time it has grown to encompass a large collection of early images, including works by pioneering photographers William Henry Fox Talbot, Southworth and Hawes and Antoine Claudet. The depth of the collection in certain areas is truly extraordinary and includes major archives such as those of Edwin Hale Lincoln, Lala Deen Dayal, and Samuel Chamberlain, the complete set of exhibition prints for Edward S. Curtis' North American Indian portfolio, more than 200 rare Civil War photographs by Matthew Brady, and a comprehensive holding of photographs of the Philippines and American Samoa. Recent acquisitions include vintage works by Diane Arbus, Nicholas Nixon and Milton Rogovin, enriching the modern and contemporary collection and complementing a handsome group of photographs by modernist master Walker Evans.
Images
Self Portrait of Childhood, 1984
Museum purchase, 1999
America II, 1998
Gift of C. Franklin Sayre, 2007
Portrait of Charles W. Upham and Henry K. Oliver, about 1847
Gift of Dr. Henry K. Oliver, 1911.
Woman at Toilette, 1880
Edward Morse Collection.
Bontoc Woman, Phillipines, c. 1903
Samoan Woman, 1880-1889
Gift of Arthur Sewall 2nd and Mrs. Loyall F. Sewall, 1960
A Royal Family, 1880–1905
Culture of the Streets, ca. 1970
Gift, Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, 1995.
Rock on a Pedestal of Ice, Tibet, ca. 1864
City of San Francisco, 1870
Off Beverly Shore, 1883 - 1888
Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Henry P. Sturgis, ca. 1852
Gift of Mrs. Henry P. Sturgis, 1892
Untitled, Two Women in Malaya, 1860-1869
House in China, 1950
Museum purchase, 2008
Hancock, Massachusetts, 1930s
Japanese Junks, ca. 1898
Andaman Island, Papuans, 1869
Haschelti – Yeibichai (Navajo), 1904
Gift of Dr. Charles Goddard Weld, 1906
Lower West Side, Buffalo, 1972-77
Gift of William and Marilyn Braunstein, 2008
Pemambuco, Brazil, c. 1880
Untitled, 1908
Museum purchase, 2001
Woman and Children of the Fishing Port of Whitby, England, ca. 1890
Gift of the Concord Free Public Library, 1949
Pont Neuf, Paris, 1839
Gift of John Burley, 1858
Indian Pipes, 1929–1940
Gift of Linda Parker, 1988.
From the album Monotropa Uniflora.
Tattooed Man at a Carnival, MD, 1970
Gift of Richard Weening in memory of Barbara Ann Woodard, 2005
Island Pagoda, China, 1870–71
Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Anthony Rives, 1973
From the album of Foo Chow and the River Min
Untitled, ca. 1863
Provincetown, Mass, 1931
Gift of Joan and Clarck Worswick, 2001.
Cincinnati, 1980
Gift of James and Margie Krebs, 2008
Madura, Trimul Naik’s Choultry, 1858
Museum purchase, 2001
From the Photographs of Madura, Part II series, 1858.
