The Currier Museum’s photography collection of over 1,700 images spans the history of the medium. Noteworthy are 19th-century images by American and European pioneers of the medium, including William Henry Jackson, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Eadweard Muybridge.

The museum has a strong selection of 20th-century pictorialist photographs by such artists as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. Documentary photography from the 20th century is prominently represented in the collection. Artists such as James VanDerZee, Dorothea Lange, and Lewis Hine, who created images of early 20th century America that have become part of our collective visual memory, occupy an important position in the collection. Photographs produced by Gordon Parks, Ernest Withers, Eli Reed, and others, were instrumental in galvanizing the civil rights movements of the century. The museum also holds a deep collection of photography documenting American conflicts, including the Vietnam War, 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The collection includes work by contemporary artists who continue to explore, expand, and redefine the photographic medium. The collection includes work by Pictures Generation artists who imbued minimalist and conceptual ideas into their photographs, like Laurie Simmons and James Casebere, as well as artists who pioneered digital photography such as Martha Rosler. Collection artists such Carrie Mae Weems, Hank Willis Thomas, Din Q Le, Nan Goldin, Alex Peskine, and Aïda Muluneh blend documentary techniques with highly personalized points of view to create work which centers marginalized and oppressed groups.

Lotte Jacobi and Modernist photography
The Currier Museum is a major repository of Lotte Jacobi’s photography, numbering over 400 images. They are accompanied by Modernist photographs by her contemporaries such as Paul Caponigro, Paul Strand, László Moholy-Nagy, Frantisek Drtikol, Brett Weston, William Clift, William Garnett, Frank Gohlke, and Edward Burtynsky The collection also has fine examples of modern abstract techniques like rayographs, photograms, and photogenics by Man Ray, Bill Brandt, and Jacobi herself.

Search the full collection to discover even more.

Please note that only a small fraction of the collection is on view at a given time, and the galleries are rotated often. If you want to know if a specific work is currently on view, please write or call ahead.