Through the Lens: American Photographs from the Carter Collection

At the turn of the twentieth century, the once highly technical, specialized process of photography transformed into a readily available and accessible medium, engaged by a growing number of practitioners towards documentary, commercial, and artistic ends.  Bridging the vast, varied landscape of the United States, photographers have turned a lens to the nation and its people, creating a visual record of places, communities, and historical events. Through the Lens presents a selection of more than fifty works from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, demonstrating the aesthetic potential, documentary value, and social power of photography.

Encompassing a range of approaches and genres, including landscape, street photography, photojournalism, and portraiture, the exhibition highlights influential images and artists that have contributed to and challenged the construction of a national photographic tradition. Included among the featured photographs are monumental and barren landscapes by photographers such as Ansel Adams and Laura Gilpin, innovations in color photography by William Eggleston and Eliot Porter, candid documents of American life by Robert Frank and Gordon Parks, and idiosyncratic portraits by Deana Lawson, Rania Matar, and Alec Soth. Presented alongside images of prominent national figures and decisive historical moments, these works illustrate the role of photography in shaping a collective vision of the United States and its histories.

Through the Lens: American Photographs from the Carter Collection is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

Pictured: Laura Gilpin (American, 1891–1979), White Sands, 1945, gelatin silver print, 7 5/8 × 9 9/16 in. (42.6 × 50.2 cm), Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Bequest of the artist, P1979.123.144, © 1979 Amon Carter Museum of American Art