Photography at the Nasher Museum

 

The Special Collections Library at Duke University has a large and especially strong collection of photographs, especially of photographs in the documentary tradition. A generous sample of work from this collection is now on display at the Nasher Museum of Art in the show Beyond Beauty: Photographs from the Duke University Special Collections Library, on exhibit through October 18th, 2009.

Work in the show covers the history of photography and includes images by Matthew Brady, Timothy O'Sullivan, William Bell, John Hillers and William Henry Jackson, Félix Bonfils, Eugène Atget, Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, F. Holland Day, Peter Henry Emerson, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Lewis Hine, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Doris Ulmann, Aaron Siskind, Gertrude Blom, and Minor White.

The show also features documentary work on the American South, including images of Kentucky by William Gedney, Paul Kwilecki's photographs of Decatur County, Georgia, and Rob Amberg's images of North Carolina.

The show also includes work by southern photographers including Sally Mann and Alex Harris. Definitely worth a trip to Durham!