I was happy to learn last week that the Center for Creative Photography was adding the archives of nine photographers to their permanent collection, a couple of which I know.
The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, is recognized as one of the world’s finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. The Center opened in 1975 and now holds over eight million archival objects in the Center’s collection including negatives, work prints, contact sheets, albums, scrapbooks, correspondence, writings, audiovisual materials and memorabilia. In addition to whole archival collections the Center also actively acquires individual photographs by modern and contemporary photographers. There are currently more than 110,000 works by over 2,200 photographers.
The Photographers who had their archives added to the collection are:
Laura Aguilar - Was a photographer from the San Gabriel Valley area of Southern California who passed away in 2018 at the age of 58. I first became aware of her work in 2023 during a meeting with curator Linde Lehtinen at the Huntington Library. Laura studied photography at East Los Angeles College, and her work included portraits of diverse communities in the Los Angeles area, self-portraits, and later, nude self-portraits in nature. Linde championed Laura.s work and could see why.
Jack Dykinga is an 83 year old American photographer. From Chicago he won a Pulitzer Prize while with the Chicago Sun Times. He later moved to Arizona and taught at the University of Arizona. He documented historic civil rights events in Chicago during his time as a press photographer.
Jody Forster Was an Arizona based photographer who had studied under Ansel Adams. He was born in Chicago in 1948 and passed away in 2020.
Frank Gohlke is an 84 year old American photographer. He was one of the ten photographers selected by Bill Jenkins to be part of the famed New Topographics exhibition in 1975 at the George Eastman House. Gohlke’s photographs of grain silos and other basic structure are iconic. Gohlke has taught photography at numerous institutions and in 2007 he joined the faculty at the University of Arizona.
Mark Klett Is a 73 year old American photographer. He holds a BS in Geology from St. Lawrence University and an MFA in Photography from SUNY Buffalo. Between 1982-1996 he was a Fine Arts Specialist at the School of Art, Arizona State University. He went on to become a Regent’s Professor and Disstinguished Sustainability Scholar at ASU and recently retired. His landscape photographs examine the changes in our environment and also cconnects with photographers past.
Nathan Lyons was an American photographer, curator, and educator. Lyons was also a curator of photography and an associate director at the George Eastman House and, in 1969, founded the independent Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, which established a course of study relating to the history and practice of the photographic art form and curatorial studies specifically pertaining to the medium of photography. He started the Society for Photographic Education, becoming its first chairman. He was involved with various magazines, being assistant editor of Image, regional editor of Aperture, and founder of Afterimage. He passed in 2016 at the age of 86.
Stephen Marc is a 72 year old photographer from Chicago who documents and interprets history with a focus on the Black experience. In the late 1980s, Marc chose to record everyday life on the street on Chicago’s South Side as part of one of the largest documentary photography projects ever organized to document an American city.
Patrick Nagatani was an American photographer and educator, best known for his work relating to the unique history of Japanese Americans including their experience with internment camps. Born in Chicago in 1945 his family moved to Los Angeles in 1955. He received a MFA from UCLA and later taught at Loyola Marymount and the University of New Mexico. He passed away in New Mexico in 2017 at the age of 72.
Susan Wood is a 94 year old New York based photographer who worked for Life, People, and New York magazines from the 1960s to the 1980s. Her first employment was with Life magazine cutting up negatives for documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Wood also did work for several movie studios by photographing production stills. Her portraits of celebrities are creative and she documented New York well.
The Personal Side of this:
I remember Mark Klett well from my time studying at Arizona State University and I have come to know him better over the years. I arrived at ASU in 1984 the same year Mark’s first book project was published: Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project, with Ellen Manchester and JoAnn Verburg. I remember lectures about the project and having several teachers talk to us about it in class. Just before I graduated in 1986 mark published his second book: Traces of Eden: Travels in the Desert Southwest. Seeing what Mark was accomplishing, and having so insight in to the process was valuable for my development. I have spoken with Mark a number of times in recent years and his insight on the current state of our medium has been very helpful. Navigating the business of photography has become more difficult with all the recent changes and our conversations have been helpful. Mark is a great contributor to the medium of photography both as a photographer and an educator.
I met Frank Gohlke a few years back and he is a gentleman. He is an iconic photographer, I love his work, and he completely approachable. it is so obvious that he loves the medium. At his opening at Etherton Gallery I asked him about his printing process for the Mt. Saint Helens photographs on display, they were amazing. He was excited to talk about the work and the process. The next time he saw me I my Sony RX100 VII with me and he asked me all about it. I can only imagine how good a professor his based on his obvious interest to continue learning himself.
Over the years I have gotten to know CCP Chief Curator Becky Senf, and we have had several conversations about collections in general and specifically the focus of CCP’s collection. Reflecting on that, I completely understand how these photographers were selected and how their work fit in with the CCP collection. When Becky posted about this acquisitions on Instagram I congratulated her and she replied telling me how good they felt about it. I feel good about this too. Congratulations to CCP, the photographers, and everyone involved in the process.
One extra thing I want to share is this Susan Wood photograph (see below) I discovered while researching her for this blog post. As some of you know I authored a book on the Santa Anita Racetrack and have photographed at a number of tracks in North America. When I saw this image, after I saw the woman’s back, I noticed the horse racing image above the bed. I then looked at the focus of the portrait, the man on the bed and saw he appeared to be reading a racing form. When I read who the man was, Andrew Beyer, I immediately figured it out. Beyer was a racing columnist for The Washington Post and the creator of the Beyer Speed Figure which rates horses past performances so they can be compared to other horses. It is still relied on today and wagers will talk about it as “the Beyers”. The photograph is a perfect portrait for Beyer, and a well crafted image.
