Photos of & by American Icons
Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, Ansel Adams share billing at exhibit
Seeing Ourselves: Masterpieces of American Photography, an Eastman House traveling photography exhibit includes original photos by master photographers.
A Visual Feast Presented by the Eastman House and NEA
Small town America is in for a visual feast over the next three years, served up by the National Endowment for the Arts and the George Eastman House. The Eastman house, a museum in the Colonial-Revival Mansion of George Eastman, (inventor of roll film, and founder of Eastman Kodak), provided the original photographs, and the NEA the underwriting for a three year, nine city tour by some of the most famous American photographers ever to click a shutter. Equally famous are some of the subjects-Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, and Angela Davis to name a few. The photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, and Edward Weston.
Originals on Display
The familiar images have appeared in numerous books and publications, on posters, stationery, and the cover of Life and other magazines. We’ve all seen the copies, now we can see the originals, some of which date from the earliest days of photography. The 156 photograph exhibit is broken into five groupings, titled, American Families which includes Lange’s portraits of migrant farm families, America the Beautiful featuring Ansel Adams’ landscapes, American Masterpieces including Edward Weston’s Nautilus, American Faces with Monroe and Babe Ruth, and America at War with photos from Gettysburg.
Exhibit Travels to Small Cities and Smaller Towns
The Seeing Ourselves Exhibit opened in Pensacola, Florida. From there it will travel to Monterey, California, Columbia, South Carolina, Zanesville, Ohio, Hanceville, Alabama, Lafayette, Louisiana, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and finally, Fort Wayne, Indiana. The exhibit is part of a NEA supported project to bring world class art, dance, music, theatre and literature to smaller, out of the way venues. For More details and Exhibit schedule, visit the Eastman House website.
