Framing the Field: An Intergenerational Conversation about the Making of Photography in US Museums

Abstract

Framing the Field is the first project of its kind devoted to recording, making public and interpreting untold histories of the institutional formation of the field of photography in the USA from the 1970s through the 1990s. Built upon oral histories with five curators of photography in museums – Sarah Greenough, Maria Morris Hambourg, Sandra S. Phillips, Anne Wilkes Tucker and Deborah Willis – Framing the Field analyses the interconnectivity of key structuring issues, including class, gender, geography, institutions, race and relationships, to reconsider how unrecognised cultural factors have informed the popular and scholarly understanding of photography today. It gestures to the depth and breadth of these curators’ contributions while revealing an expanded history that goes well beyond their individual careers, offering both essential documentation and an alternative framing of the formation of the field. This issue of History of Photography features the first publication of excerpts from the oral histories, paired with critical responses by Molly Kalkstein, Emilia Mickevicius, Anni Pullagura, Audrey Sands and Delphine Sims. A capstone article about Nancy Newhall by Kate Palmer Albers provides a broader contextualisation of the historical period under examination. The journal offers the opportunity to bring together intergenerational perspectives on the intersection of museums and photography.