Now open at the San Diego Museum of Art is Masters of Photography: The Garner Collection, an exhibition featuring important photography spanning more than a century.
The collection comes from long-time museum patrons and donors Cam and Wanda Garner. “For more than a decade, the Garners have supported the museum and the greater San Diego community, and have generously gifted over 300 works from their collection to the museum and loaned many more, including those featured in our current exhibition Mary Ellen Mark: Twins,” says Roxana Velásquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director at the San Diego Museum of Art. “Cam Garner himself is an established photographer, and his reverence for the medium is reflected in the breadth of this collection as well as his dedication to sharing important works with the public.”
The exhibition is grouped thematically into three sections: Reflections on Nature presents a variety of landscapes, including famed environmentalist Ansel Adams’s El Capitan, Sunrise Winter, Yosemite National Park; Things as They Are analyzes subjects of the city, society and conflict with well-known examples from Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White and Henri Cartier-Bresson; and Manipulating Reality looks at expressions of abstraction and allegory in the medium, from early 20th-century work by Frank Eugene to the modern cinematic dreamscapes of Gregory Crewdson.
Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940), Sadie Pfeiffer, Spinner in Cotton Mill, South Carolina, 1910. Gelatin silver print. The Garner Collection.
Assistant curator Cory Woodall, who organized the exhibition, describes the show as a highlight reel from the Garner’s collection. “It’s a broad collection of images, but it’s not a comprehensive survey of the history of photography because it really shows the collectors’ tastes being revealed,” Woodall says. “And within those tastes is a huge breadth of work, including big names and iconic works.”
Anne Brigman (1869-1950), The Pine Sprite, 1911. Gelatin silver print. The Garner Collection.
Frank Eugene (1865-1936), Minuet, 1900. Photogravure. The Garner Collection.
Images in the exhibition include Anne Brigman’s 1911 work The Pine Sprite, showing a nude figure perched on a gnarled, old tree; Lewis Wickes Hine’s 1910 image Sadie Pfeiffer, Spinner in Cotton Mill, South Carolina, which shows a young girl working in a cotton mill; and William Edward Dassonville’s 1905 photograph Yosemite Valley, showing the iconic view of the national park.
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957), Yosemite Valley, 1905. Platinum print. The Garner Collection.
As with all events in the world right now, visitors are strongly encouraged to refer to the museum’s website to check the status of the museum and the exhibition before visiting. While there have been lockdowns and health-related museum closures in California, the San Diego Museum of Art has given a boost to its online offerings to keep guests involved in art at the museum even when they could not physically attend the museum. —
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