Photographs in Penn's Art Collection: Online Gallery	Print Issue
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This photograph—Performing Dogs, National Circus of Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam, 1994—by alumna Mary Ellen Mark, CW'60, ASC'63, HON'94, is one of many compelling photographs by world-renowned photographers in the University of Pennsylvania Art Collection.

Over the past year, Penn’s Office of the Curator has placed special focus on photography. Due to the fragile nature of photographic images, photographs are seldom found on view in campus buildings.

However, 80 photographs from the University Art Collection are on view at the Arthur Ross Gallery now until January 27, as part of the exhibition 9 Perspectives on a Photography Collection. The exhibition is curated by the nine faculty members from Penn’s photography department. Led by the exhibition’s Chief Curator, Gabriel Martinez, the following faculty members curated the exhibition: Michael Bryant, Nancy Davenport, Jamie Diamond, Anna Neighbor, Karen Rodewald, Sara Stolfa, Brent Wahl and Tony Ward.

In her catalogue essay, Arthur Ross Gallery Director Lynn Marsden-Atlass notes that Gabe Martinez discovered “buried treasure” in the University’s photography portfolios. “He realized that Penn housed an important photography collection,” said Ms. Atlass. By inviting his eight colleagues, Mr. Martinez “exponentially expanded his vision of this exhibition, tranforming it into a presentation of nine different perspectives, with nine curatorial voices.” The show opened last month to an enthusiastic audience.

As part of the exhibition planning process, Mr. Martinez worked with the Office of the Curator’s Collections Manager Heather Gibson to document and digitize the entire photography collection, encompassing photos by dozens of photographers. The process took place over the course of 12 months, and the resulting records are available to the public through the Office of the Curator website.

To view the new online photography gallery, consisting of more than 650 images, visit the Office of the Curator website, www.upenn.edu/curator/collection-photographs.html

The gallery is part of the online art collection that also contains images of some of the paintings, sculpture, furniture & decorative arts, prints & works on paper and University portraits.