July 24 – November 28, 2010
Norton Photography Gallery
The year was 1975. Gerald R. Ford was president, a little company named Microsoft was founded, A Chorus Line opened on Broadway and Jaws was making a big splash in movie theaters. And in Tucson, a lifelong dream was realized.
Founded by legendary photographer Ansel Adams and then University of Arizona President John P. Schaefer, The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona was the vision of two men who wanted to create an institution dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting and managing all materials that are essential to understanding photography and its history. Today, 35 years later, the Center has acquired more archives and individual works by 20th century North American photographers than any other museum in the nation.
Creative Continuum charts the Center’s dynamic evolution, beginning with the inaugural exhibition of works by Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and Frederick Sommer through today’s contemporary artists that are reinventing the medium. This special look at the Center’s history is an exciting and engaging “who’s who” of American photography and features works by Richard Avedon, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Louis Carlos Bernal, Tseng Kwong Chi, Imogen Cunningham, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Roy DeCarava, Andy Warhol and Edward Weston.
In addition to nearly ninety photographs, Creative Continuum also includes a sampling from the Center’s Voices of Photography video oral history project, rare archival objects from the vault and examples of past exhibition catalogues.
Image Credits:
Left: Max Yavno, Cable Cars, San Francisco, 1947. Purchase. ©1998 Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation. Center: Ansel Adams, Road and Fence, Point Reyes, California, ca. 1939. Ansel Adams Archive. © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Collection Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. Right: Aaron Siskind, Terrors & Pleasures of Levitation, No. 99, 1961. Aaron Siskind Archive. © The Aaron Siskind Foundation