Hallmark Photographic Collection
Encyclopedia
The Hallmark Photographic Collection was amassed by Hallmark Cards, Inc..
It was donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
in Kansas City, Missouri
in December 2005. At that time, it consisted of 6,500 images by 900 artists, with an estimated market value of $65 million.
The collection spans the entire history of photography, from 1839 to the present, with works by Southworth & Hawes
, Carleton Watkins
, Timothy O'Sullivan
, Alvin Langdon Coburn
, Edward Steichen
, Alfred Stieglitz
, Dorothea Lange
, Harry Callahan, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Lee Friedlander
, Andy Warhol
, Cindy Sherman
and many others.
The collection was started in 1964. It was one of the earliest corporate collections of photography in the world, and perhaps the first in the United States. The first acquisition, by Hallmark vice president David Strout, was of 141 prints by Harry Callahan. These were presented in a major exhibition in New York in the fall of 1964, at the gallery space in the Hallmark Gallery store at 720 Fifth Avenue. In the next dozen years, bodies of work by major leading photographers, from Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Linda Connor were acquired.
Since 1979, the collection was guided by Keith F. Davis, who expanded the collection from 650 works by about 35 photographers, to 6,500 works by about 900 artists. He organized dozens of exhibitions from the collection for national and international tour, and authored a number of publications on the collection. The most significant single volume on the collection is Davis's An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital, The Hallmark Photographic Collection, 2nd edition (Abrams, 1999). Other notable publications include Harry Callahan: New Color, Photographs 1978-1987 (1988); George N. Barnard: Photographer of Sherman's Campaign (1990); Clarence John Laughlin: Visionary Photographer (1990); and The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (1995).
To accompany a major 2007 exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, a book by Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall surveying the key 19th century contents of the collection was published: The Origins of American Photography, 1839-1885, from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate (2007).
It was donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
in December 2005. At that time, it consisted of 6,500 images by 900 artists, with an estimated market value of $65 million.
The collection spans the entire history of photography, from 1839 to the present, with works by Southworth & Hawes
Southworth & Hawes
Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843-1863. Its partners, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes , have been hailed as the first great American masters of photography, whose work elevated photographic portraits to the level of fine art...
, Carleton Watkins
Carleton Watkins
Carleton E. Watkins was a noted 19th century California photographer.Carleton Emmons Watkins was born in Oneonta, upstate New York. He went to San Francisco during the gold rush, arriving in 1851...
, Timothy O'Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan was a photographer widely known for his work related to the American Civil War and the Western United States.O'Sullivan was born in New York City. As a teenager, he was employed by Mathew Brady...
, Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn was an early 20th century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism...
, Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
, Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
, Harry Callahan, Jerry N. Uelsmann, Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 70s, working primarily with 35mm cameras and black and white film, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of the photographs including fragments of...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
and many others.
The collection was started in 1964. It was one of the earliest corporate collections of photography in the world, and perhaps the first in the United States. The first acquisition, by Hallmark vice president David Strout, was of 141 prints by Harry Callahan. These were presented in a major exhibition in New York in the fall of 1964, at the gallery space in the Hallmark Gallery store at 720 Fifth Avenue. In the next dozen years, bodies of work by major leading photographers, from Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Linda Connor were acquired.
Since 1979, the collection was guided by Keith F. Davis, who expanded the collection from 650 works by about 35 photographers, to 6,500 works by about 900 artists. He organized dozens of exhibitions from the collection for national and international tour, and authored a number of publications on the collection. The most significant single volume on the collection is Davis's An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital, The Hallmark Photographic Collection, 2nd edition (Abrams, 1999). Other notable publications include Harry Callahan: New Color, Photographs 1978-1987 (1988); George N. Barnard: Photographer of Sherman's Campaign (1990); Clarence John Laughlin: Visionary Photographer (1990); and The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (1995).
To accompany a major 2007 exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, a book by Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall surveying the key 19th century contents of the collection was published: The Origins of American Photography, 1839-1885, from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate (2007).