school to offer a graduate program in photogra-
phy, conferring its first advanced degrees in 1952.
James N. Wood, president of the Art Institute of
Chicago from 1980 until 2004, has said, ‘‘Ask any
photographer with whom he or she trained, and
you can probably trace that education back to the
Institute of Design.’’ After four years of research,
the Art Institute mounted a presentation of the
Institute of Design’s contribution to American
photography titledTaken by Design: Photographs
from the Institute of Design, 1937–1971. Installed at
the Art Institute in 2002, ‘‘Taken by Design’’ tra-
veled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2003.
As the Art Institute was settling into its new
home in the 1880s, photography was just becoming
established as an art form in America. The first
major photography exhibition in Chicago was
held in April 1900, when the Society of Amateur
Photographers presented the First Annual Photo-
graphic Salon. No American museums had yet
established photography departments or programs,
although three New York galleries were exhibiting
photography in the early 1900s.
Alfred Stieglitz’s prote ́ge ́ Julien Levy collected
and exhibited photography at his New York gal-
lery from 1931 until 1949. When the Art Institute
acquired the Julien Levy Collection in 1975, it
encompassed the work of 35 photographers, in-
cluding Alvin Langdon Coburn, Imogen Cunning-
ham, Lee Miller, La ́szlo ́Moholy-Nagy, and Ralph
Steiner, in addition to Euge ́ne Atget’s entire collec-
tion of photographs and negatives, which Levy had
bought in 1927.
Under the direction of Robert B. Harsche, the Art
Institute hired a professional curatorial staff in
the 1930s, which led to the development of the
Department of Prints and Drawings, which in turn
generated the photography department. Daniel Cat-
ton Rich was named the Art Institute’s Director
of Fine Arts in 1938, and throughout his tenure
provided support for exhibiting and collecting
photography, before most other U.S. museums con-
sidered photography a fine art medium. Rich met
Alfred Stieglitz’s muse and painter Georgia O’Keefe
in 1929 through Mabel Dodge Luhan, the arts doy-
enne of Santa Fe, thus cementing a friendship. After
Stieglitz’s death in 1946, O’ Keefe turned to Rich
for advice about dispersing Stieglitz’s photographs
and ultimately donated a major portion of the col-
lection to museum.The memorial exhibition titled
Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection,
which opened in January 1948, included photo-
graphs by Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, Paul
Strand, David Hill, Julia Margaret Cameron,
and other members of Photo-Secession Group.
Rich eventually arranged O’Keeffe’s first American
solo exhibition.
Hugh Edwards, associate curator of prints and
drawings at the Art Institute from 1959 until 1970,
was one of the most influential curators of photo-
graphy in America. Edwards shepherded the nas-
cent photography collection at the Art Institute
until it became an officially recognized department.
His enthusiasm for street photography was infec-
tious and served as inspiration for Danny Lyon,
among others, and ultimately changed what was
considered a proper subject for art. He was the
first to offer shows to Duane Michaels and the first
to exhibit Robert Frank’sThe Americansin 1961.
Edwards established an Art Institute tradition
of granting solo exhibitions to photographers
early in their careers: Andre ́ Kerte ́sz and Walker
Evans in 1946, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston
in 1952, Gordon Parks in 1953, and Henri Cartier-
Bresson in 1954. An exhibition of photographs by
Harry Callahan in 1951 inaugurated the Photo-
graphy Exhibition Gallery. In 1953 ‘‘Photographs
in the Peabody Fund’’ displayed pictorial photo-
graphs donated by Mrs. Stuyvesant Peabody
expressly for the newly established gallery, which
according to an assistant curator was ‘‘part hall-
way, part waiting room.’’ The gallery later became
the AIC Gallery of Photography and was launch-
ed with an exhibition of work by Frederick Som-
mer in 1963.
Photography exhibitions at the Art Institute at
that time were small by today’s standards and orga-
nized without accompanying catalogs or checklist
documentation. But the department continued to
grow with additional gifts and acquisitions, includ-
ing major donations of works by Paul Strand and
more than 200 photographs by Edward Weston. The
first color exhibition featured works by Arthur Siegel
in 1954; Yasuhiro Ishimoto was the first Japanese
photographer exhibited at the museum, in 1960.
The Art Institute continues to bring contempo-
rary photography to Chicago, including shows by
Mark Klett, Susan Meiselas, and Raghubir Singh,
and a retrospective of the work of Kenneth Joseph-
son in 2000. An exhibition titled About Face:
Photographic Portraits from the Collectionin Octo-
ber 2004, featured recent acquisitions in the Art
Institute’s collection. Thirty contemporary photo-
graphers were represented, including Sally Mann,
Nicholas Nixon, Vik Muniz, Cindy Sherman, Nan
Goldin, Susan Meiselas, Richard Avedon, Chuck
Close, Luis Gonzalez Palma, and Fazal Sheikh.
RENATAGoldenART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO