Dear friends of the MFAH Photography Department,
It’s “back to school” time, and we’re ready to report on how we spent our summer and what lies ahead this fall. We have not spent the summer relaxing someplace cool (well, OK, one week in Asheville visiting family and their new Great Pyrenees pup, Leo, but still….) Instead, we’ve been working hard to install a new selection of work from the permanent collection in our Kinder Building photography galleries, preparing for the exhibition of Cuban contemporary photography opening in late September, and arranging a host of public and Photo Forum events for the new year.
First things first, get out your calendars and mark these dates:
• This Thursday, September 5, 6:00-7:00 p.m. in Hirsch Library. The Artist and the Book: Rahim Fortune in Conversation with Nicole Fleetwood. Contemporary artists often use books and research as key elements in their artistic practice to examine the past and create new narratives. Based in Austin and Brooklyn, New York, Rahim Fortune is a visual artist and educator from the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma who uses photography to explore American identity through narratives of families and communities. A book signing followsthe conversation.
• Sunday, September 15. The final day for Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History. From his “Dailies”—relatively small prints based on his own iPhone photographs—to monumental reconstructions of images culled from the media, to his remarkable and hilarious stop-motion animation Pacific Sun in its bespoke theater, to the site-specific wallpapers for our galleries, this is an exhibition you shouldn’t miss! MFAH is this show’s only venue in our hemisphere, so don’t let it pass you by. And don’t miss curator of Asian Art Bradley Bailey’s fascinating and exquisite exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan upstairs in the Law building that also closes September 15.
• Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography. Several years in the making, this special exhibition of 100 photographs from the permanent collection traces the the medium’s history in Cuba from from the triumph of Castro’s revolution to contemporary explorations of identity, the body and spirit, Afro-Cuban heritage, and the margins of society.
• Thursday, September 26: Photo Forum private tour of the exhibiton.
• Saturday, September 28: Exhibition preview for Patron+ members with an overview lecture and reception at 6:00 p.m.
• Sunday, September 29. Public opening and 2:00 p.m. overview lecture.
Scherer & Nabholz (Moscow, active late 19th century), Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow, c. 1860. Salted paper print from glass negative, varnished, 13½ × 11 in. Museum purchase funded by Harry M. Reasoner in honor of Macey Reasoner at “One Great Night in November, 2015,” 2015.548
Jan Groover (American, 1943-2012), Untitled #91, 1981. Platinum/palladium print, 7 1/2 × 9 7/16 in. The Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection, 91.689. © Jan Groover, courtesy Janet Borden, Inc.
Andrew Moore (American, born 1957), Model T Headquarters, Highland Park, Detroit, 2009. Chromogenic print, 35 7/8 × 45 5/8 in. Gift of John A. MacMahon in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker, 2014.902. © Andrew Moore
• Thursday to Saturday, October 17–19. The MFAH will host the annual conference of The Daguerreian Society, an organization dedicated to promoting knowledge and appreciation of 19th-century photography. We’re offering gallery and behind-the-scenes tours on Thursday, October 17, with an evening reception, and will host an all-day symposium on Friday, October 18. You can look for treasures at the Society’s photo fair on Saturday, October 19,at the conference hotel, the Intercontinental at the Medical Center. Find conference details and registration information at the link above.
Phew! Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s what’s new…
As I previewed in my last letter, we’ve reinstalled the photography galleries on the second floor of the Kinder Building, and you’ll find it looking very different from the last time you visited. We’ve pulled 20th-century and contemporary photography into the front gallery, and filled the mid-sized gallery behind it with a rich display of 19th-century material, much of it acquired in the past 10 years. I can’t wait to showoff our treasures to the collectors, curators, and dealers who come for the Daguerreian Society conference. On the walls, you’ll find Nadar’s picture of the catacombs of Paris and his portrait of Alexandre Dumas; Julien Vallou de Villeneuve’s figure study that served as a model for the painter Gustave Courbet; early photographs of Moscow, India, Japan, Egypt, Mont Blanc, Yosemite, and Mexico City; and powerful photographs related to slavery and abolition. Among the bound volumes displayed in cases are William Henry Fox Talbot’s Pencil of Nature, the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs; Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, a moving account of the Civil War in word and image; Maxime du Camp’s Égypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie with photographs made in 1849, 1850, and 1851; the painter William Bradford’s The Arctic Regions with photographs of icebergs made along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1869 by Dunmore and Critcherson; and Julia Margaret Cameron’s incomparable “Norman Album,” one of our greatest treasures.
For the 20th century, you’ll find Edward Steichen’s majestic Trees, Long Island of 1904; one of Alvin Landon Coburn’s Vortograph photographs (1917), which are often hailed as the first abstract photographs; Tina Modotti’s Campesinos (1926); a great trio of photographs by Man Ray; and lots more—photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Kati Horna, Hans Breder, Bruce Davidson, Shomei Tomatsu, Jan Groover, Gordon Matta-Clark, Joel Sternfeld, and others. And in this gallery, too, beautiful photographically illustrated books, including issues of Camera Work, Peter Henry Emerson’s Pictures of East Anglian Life, Coburn’s London, Shinzo Fukuhara’s very rare Pari to Seinu, Hans Bellmer’s La Poupée, and more.
And finally, you’ll see a number of major contemporary photographs making their MFAH debut: Alexandra Bell’s Gang Leader; Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang’s The Mother as Creator; Dawoud Bey’s Shalantafrom his Class Pictures series; Shikeith’s Jesus Pieces; Mark Ruwedel’s Moving Rocks #8 (The Racetrack), a recent gift of Nick and Stephanie Bozick; Andrew Moore’s Model T Headquarters, Highland Park, Detroit, a gift of Subcommittee member John MacMahon; Jan Henle’s La Jíbarata II, a gift of the late Pierre Apraxine, famed curator of the Gilman Paper Company Collection; and much, much more—too many to list. You’ll just have to come and see for yourself! This installation, including a new rotation of video art in our small gallery, will remain on view through January.
Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography by Malcolm Daniel and Raquel Carrera. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 2024. Hardcover, 176 pp., 122 ill.
The solution to last newsletter’s photo themed crossword puzzle. Although ineligible for the big prize since he’s won before, kudos to Burt Nelson for being the first—and only—person to solve the puzzle. The prize goes unclaimed.
Hot off the press…
The first copies Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography are due to arrive in the Museum Shop next week. Raquel Carrera and I couldn’t be more thrilled with the book and are grateful to the Museum’s publisher in chief, Heather Brand, and managing editor, Megan Smith, for polishing our prose, and to the book’s designer Roy Brooks of Four Fold, Inc. for his handsome design.
The essay that Raquel and I co-authored traces the evolution of the medium from Fidel Castro’s triumph on New Year’s Day 1959 to the present. Celebration of the revolution and promotion of its ambitions were central to photographers in the 1960s and 1970s (think Alberto Korda’s famous image of Che Guevara), gradually giving way to depictions of the day-to-day joys, hardships, and aspirations of ordinary Cubans in the 1980s. During the “Special Period” of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of Cuba’s principal trading partner and economic subsidies, a more personal and poetic exploration emerged as artists examined their lives through the lens of Afro-Cuban ritual, personal history, queer identity, race, and gender. Artists of the current generation, born well after the revolution and working in the new millennium with a greater awareness of international contemporary art, often address the precarious nature of life in present-day Cuba. The show and catalogue spotlight the Cuban photographers who created powerful personal expressions while skirting the prescriptions of their government’s propagandists and the proscriptions of its censors. Stop in the shop to purchase a copy.
Once again…
I’ve attached the 2024-25 Photo Forum Calendar of Events at the end of this letter and hope you’ll consider renewing or joining. We’ve got a great line-up again this year. Membership for an individual or couple starts at $750, a true bargain and a great way to support what we do. Note that the date of the Beaumont day-trip has changed from the calendar I sent with the last letter. (Thank you, Geoffrey Koslov, for noting that we had inadvertently scheduled it on the first night of Passover.)
Stay tuned…
My next newsletter will have more about our Cuban exhibition and exciting news about major gifts to the department—two important groups of contemporary photography.
Best wishes for a glorious fall, and hoping to see you soon,
Malcolm Daniel
Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography
1001 Bissonnet, Houston TX 77005
Tel: (713) 800-5389
P.O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826
Fax: (713) 639-7399
Photo Forum Calendar of Events 2024-2025
FALL 2024
EXHIBITION TOUR: Navigating the Waves: Contemporary
Cuban Photography
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Malcolm Daniel and Raquel Carrera, joined by collector Madeleine Plonsker, will lead Photo Forum members on a preview tour of this exhibition of 100 photographs which traces the development of the medium in Cuba after the revolution and celebrates the Museum’s acquisition of the Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection.
VISITING SCHOLAR: Grant Romer on Daguerreotype Views
of America
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Formerly the chief conservator at George Eastman Museum, a world authority on daguerreotypes, and a famously engaging speaker, Grant Romer will discuss the underappreciated but considerable achievement of American daguerreotypists in documenting, outside the studio, the national life and land.
ARTIST TALK: Trevor Paglen discusses Art and AI
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Artist and author Trevor Paglen, whose video Image Operations. Op. 10 will be on view, will speak about art and artificial intelligence—how his own work addresses various issues related to AI and surveillance and how we can think about the role of AI in our lives, its future, and its impact on art practice.
WINTER/SPRING 2025
CURATORIAL SEMINAR: Major Acquisitions of 2024
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
In this annual event, the curatorial staff presents some of the Photography Department’s important acquisitions of the past year, explaining the factors considered during the acquisition process including the power and beauty of the specific photograph, the artist’s place in the history of the medium, the quality and rarity of the work, and its relationship to the Museum’s existing collection. Photographs from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries will be presented.
VISITING SCHOLAR: Kim Beil
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Kim Beil, a photo historian based at Stanford University and author of Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography and Anonymous Objects: Inscrutable Photographs and the Unknown discusses her creative way of looking at photographs and provides a peek into her next project.
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TRAVEL: Day trip to Beaumont
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Visit to the studio and home of renowned photographer and teacher Keith Carter, a Texas legend, followed by a group lunch at a local eatery, and a visit to the McFaddin-Ward Historic House Museum, a grand Beaux-Arts Colonial style home built in 1905-06. Further details announced at a later date. Limited to 20 people; priority given to Founder, Benefactor, and Patron members.
37TH ANNUAL VOTE NIGHT
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
At this always anticipated event, the festive climax of each year, Photo Forum members learn about photographs selected by the curators and vote on which of the proposed acquisitions to support with Photo Forum funds. This year’s event will again feature multiple rounds of voting interspersed with abundant food and drink!
In addition to the events listed above, members may be invited to bonus events, gallery visits, exhibition tours, or informal conversations with visiting artists and scholars.
Members will receive invitations with event details prior to each program.
Illustrated:
Liudmila & Nelson, Absolut Revolution – La isla (Absolut Revolution – The Island), 2002, The Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection, gift of Madeleine and Harvey Plonsker, 2024.260 © Liudmila & Nelson; Platt D. Babbitt, Niagara Falls, c.1855, Museum purchase funded by the S. I. and Susie Morris Photography Endowment and Alexander K. McLanahan, 2017.122; Trevor Paglen, Image Operations. Op. 10 (detail), 2018, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund and the Henry Nias Foundation, 2024.69 © Trevor Paglen; Grete Stern, Dream No. 26: The Eternal Eye, c.1951, Museum purchase funded by the Anne Levy Charitable Trust, the JBD Foundation, courtesy of Nena Marsh, Joan Morgenstern, and Patricia Eifel, 2024.33 © Estate of Grete Stern courtesy Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche, Buenos Aires; Portrait of Kim Beil, photo credit: Austin Nelson; Keith Carter, Keith Carter, 2017 © Keith Carter; Tabitha Soren, Emailed Kiss Goodnight, 2016, printed 2023, Museum purchase by Photo Forum 2024 and Ken Frederick, 2024.102 © Tabitha Soren.
Schedule as of July 1, 2024. Schedule subject to change.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Photo Forum
Photo Forum, a patron group that supports the Photography Department at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was founded in 1988 and since then has made possible the acquisition of more than 500 photographs. Photo Forum is designed to bring photography collectors and devotees into closer contact with the Museum’s gifted curators and renowned collection through behind-the-scenes seminars led by the curatorial staff on a variety of topics related to the collection, special tours and opening receptions of the Museum’s photography exhibitions, talks by visiting artists and scholars, and visits to prominent private collections. Photo Forum members at all levels are entitled to cast ballots on works proposed for acquisition at the annual “Vote Night,” the celebratory climax of each year’s calendar. This ongoing program of activities has proven to be a stimulating and enriching experience for photograph collectors and enthusiasts, and Photo Forum has become a vital source of support for photography at the MFAH, helping the Museum meet its mission of bringing the very best of the art of photography to a broad public.
Membership Levels
Founder - $7,000
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• Private curator consultation by appointment
• May invite two guests to each program
• First priority for Photo Forum trips and private collection visits
• Four ballots for annual “Vote Night”
• An inscribed copy of each photography catalogue newly published by MFAH
Benefactor - $3,500
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• May invite one guest to each program
• Second priority for Photo Forum trips and private collection visits
• Three ballots for annual “Vote Night”
• An inscribed copy of each photography catalogue newly published by MFAH
Patron - $1,500
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• Two ballots for annual “Vote Night”
Member - $750
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• One ballot for annual “Vote Night”
Young Member (under 40) - $500
• Invitations for one to all Photo Forum member programs
• One ballot for annual “Vote Night”
For information about Photo Forum membership or to join or renew your membership, please contact Ashley Powell at (713) 639-7594 or apowell@mfah.org or visit www.mfah.org/patron-groups.
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Dear friends of the MFAH Photography Department,
It’s “back to school” time, and we’re ready to report on how we spent our summer and what lies ahead this fall. We have not spent the summer relaxing someplace cool (well, OK, one week in Asheville visiting family and their new Great Pyrenees pup, Leo, but still….) Instead, we’ve been working hard to install a new selection of work from the permanent collection in our Kinder Building photography galleries, preparing for the exhibition of Cuban contemporary photography opening in late September, and arranging a host of public and Photo Forum events for the new year.
First things first, get out your calendars and mark these dates:
• This Thursday, September 5, 6:00-7:00 p.m. in Hirsch Library. The Artist and the Book: Rahim Fortune in Conversation with Nicole Fleetwood. Contemporary artists often use books and research as key elements in their artistic practice to examine the past and create new narratives. Based in Austin and Brooklyn, New York, Rahim Fortune is a visual artist and educator from the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma who uses photography to explore American identity through narratives of families and communities. A book signing followsthe conversation.
• Sunday, September 15. The final day for Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History. From his “Dailies”—relatively small prints based on his own iPhone photographs—to monumental reconstructions of images culled from the media, to his remarkable and hilarious stop-motion animation Pacific Sun in its bespoke theater, to the site-specific wallpapers for our galleries, this is an exhibition you shouldn’t miss! MFAH is this show’s only venue in our hemisphere, so don’t let it pass you by. And don’t miss curator of Asian Art Bradley Bailey’s fascinating and exquisite exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan upstairs in the Law building that also closes September 15.
• Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography. Several years in the making, this special exhibition of 100 photographs from the permanent collection traces the the medium’s history in Cuba from from the triumph of Castro’s revolution to contemporary explorations of identity, the body and spirit, Afro-Cuban heritage, and the margins of society.
• Thursday, September 26: Photo Forum private tour of the exhibiton.
• Saturday, September 28: Exhibition preview for Patron+ members with an overview lecture and reception at 6:00 p.m.
• Sunday, September 29. Public opening and 2:00 p.m. overview lecture.
Scherer & Nabholz (Moscow, active late 19th century), Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow, c. 1860. Salted paper print from glass negative, varnished, 13½ × 11 in. Museum purchase funded by Harry M. Reasoner in honor of Macey Reasoner at “One Great Night in November, 2015,” 2015.548
Jan Groover (American, 1943-2012), Untitled #91, 1981. Platinum/palladium print, 7 1/2 × 9 7/16 in. The Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection, 91.689. © Jan Groover, courtesy Janet Borden, Inc.
Andrew Moore (American, born 1957), Model T Headquarters, Highland Park, Detroit, 2009. Chromogenic print, 35 7/8 × 45 5/8 in. Gift of John A. MacMahon in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker, 2014.902. © Andrew Moore
• Thursday to Saturday, October 17–19. The MFAH will host the annual conference of The Daguerreian Society, an organization dedicated to promoting knowledge and appreciation of 19th-century photography. We’re offering gallery and behind-the-scenes tours on Thursday, October 17, with an evening reception, and will host an all-day symposium on Friday, October 18. You can look for treasures at the Society’s photo fair on Saturday, October 19,at the conference hotel, the Intercontinental at the Medical Center. Find conference details and registration information at the link above.
Phew! Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s what’s new…
As I previewed in my last letter, we’ve reinstalled the photography galleries on the second floor of the Kinder Building, and you’ll find it looking very different from the last time you visited. We’ve pulled 20th-century and contemporary photography into the front gallery, and filled the mid-sized gallery behind it with a rich display of 19th-century material, much of it acquired in the past 10 years. I can’t wait to showoff our treasures to the collectors, curators, and dealers who come for the Daguerreian Society conference. On the walls, you’ll find Nadar’s picture of the catacombs of Paris and his portrait of Alexandre Dumas; Julien Vallou de Villeneuve’s figure study that served as a model for the painter Gustave Courbet; early photographs of Moscow, India, Japan, Egypt, Mont Blanc, Yosemite, and Mexico City; and powerful photographs related to slavery and abolition. Among the bound volumes displayed in cases are William Henry Fox Talbot’s Pencil of Nature, the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs; Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, a moving account of the Civil War in word and image; Maxime du Camp’s Égypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie with photographs made in 1849, 1850, and 1851; the painter William Bradford’s The Arctic Regions with photographs of icebergs made along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1869 by Dunmore and Critcherson; and Julia Margaret Cameron’s incomparable “Norman Album,” one of our greatest treasures.
For the 20th century, you’ll find Edward Steichen’s majestic Trees, Long Island of 1904; one of Alvin Landon Coburn’s Vortograph photographs (1917), which are often hailed as the first abstract photographs; Tina Modotti’s Campesinos (1926); a great trio of photographs by Man Ray; and lots more—photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Kati Horna, Hans Breder, Bruce Davidson, Shomei Tomatsu, Jan Groover, Gordon Matta-Clark, Joel Sternfeld, and others. And in this gallery, too, beautiful photographically illustrated books, including issues of Camera Work, Peter Henry Emerson’s Pictures of East Anglian Life, Coburn’s London, Shinzo Fukuhara’s very rare Pari to Seinu, Hans Bellmer’s La Poupée, and more.
And finally, you’ll see a number of major contemporary photographs making their MFAH debut: Alexandra Bell’s Gang Leader; Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang’s The Mother as Creator; Dawoud Bey’s Shalantafrom his Class Pictures series; Shikeith’s Jesus Pieces; Mark Ruwedel’s Moving Rocks #8 (The Racetrack), a recent gift of Nick and Stephanie Bozick; Andrew Moore’s Model T Headquarters, Highland Park, Detroit, a gift of Subcommittee member John MacMahon; Jan Henle’s La Jíbarata II, a gift of the late Pierre Apraxine, famed curator of the Gilman Paper Company Collection; and much, much more—too many to list. You’ll just have to come and see for yourself! This installation, including a new rotation of video art in our small gallery, will remain on view through January.
Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography by Malcolm Daniel and Raquel Carrera. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 2024. Hardcover, 176 pp., 122 ill.
The solution to last newsletter’s photo themed crossword puzzle. Although ineligible for the big prize since he’s won before, kudos to Burt Nelson for being the first—and only—person to solve the puzzle. The prize goes unclaimed.
Hot off the press…
The first copies Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography are due to arrive in the Museum Shop next week. Raquel Carrera and I couldn’t be more thrilled with the book and are grateful to the Museum’s publisher in chief, Heather Brand, and managing editor, Megan Smith, for polishing our prose, and to the book’s designer Roy Brooks of Four Fold, Inc. for his handsome design.
The essay that Raquel and I co-authored traces the evolution of the medium from Fidel Castro’s triumph on New Year’s Day 1959 to the present. Celebration of the revolution and promotion of its ambitions were central to photographers in the 1960s and 1970s (think Alberto Korda’s famous image of Che Guevara), gradually giving way to depictions of the day-to-day joys, hardships, and aspirations of ordinary Cubans in the 1980s. During the “Special Period” of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of Cuba’s principal trading partner and economic subsidies, a more personal and poetic exploration emerged as artists examined their lives through the lens of Afro-Cuban ritual, personal history, queer identity, race, and gender. Artists of the current generation, born well after the revolution and working in the new millennium with a greater awareness of international contemporary art, often address the precarious nature of life in present-day Cuba. The show and catalogue spotlight the Cuban photographers who created powerful personal expressions while skirting the prescriptions of their government’s propagandists and the proscriptions of its censors. Stop in the shop to purchase a copy.
Once again…
I’ve attached the 2024-25 Photo Forum Calendar of Events at the end of this letter and hope you’ll consider renewing or joining. We’ve got a great line-up again this year. Membership for an individual or couple starts at $750, a true bargain and a great way to support what we do. Note that the date of the Beaumont day-trip has changed from the calendar I sent with the last letter. (Thank you, Geoffrey Koslov, for noting that we had inadvertently scheduled it on the first night of Passover.)
Stay tuned…
My next newsletter will have more about our Cuban exhibition and exciting news about major gifts to the department—two important groups of contemporary photography.
Best wishes for a glorious fall, and hoping to see you soon,
Malcolm Daniel
Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography
1001 Bissonnet, Houston TX 77005
Tel: (713) 800-5389
P.O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826
Fax: (713) 639-7399
Photo Forum Calendar of Events 2024-2025
FALL 2024
EXHIBITION TOUR: Navigating the Waves: Contemporary
Cuban Photography
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Malcolm Daniel and Raquel Carrera, joined by collector Madeleine Plonsker, will lead Photo Forum members on a preview tour of this exhibition of 100 photographs which traces the development of the medium in Cuba after the revolution and celebrates the Museum’s acquisition of the Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection.
VISITING SCHOLAR: Grant Romer on Daguerreotype Views
of America
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Formerly the chief conservator at George Eastman Museum, a world authority on daguerreotypes, and a famously engaging speaker, Grant Romer will discuss the underappreciated but considerable achievement of American daguerreotypists in documenting, outside the studio, the national life and land.
ARTIST TALK: Trevor Paglen discusses Art and AI
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Artist and author Trevor Paglen, whose video Image Operations. Op. 10 will be on view, will speak about art and artificial intelligence—how his own work addresses various issues related to AI and surveillance and how we can think about the role of AI in our lives, its future, and its impact on art practice.
WINTER/SPRING 2025
CURATORIAL SEMINAR: Major Acquisitions of 2024
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
In this annual event, the curatorial staff presents some of the Photography Department’s important acquisitions of the past year, explaining the factors considered during the acquisition process including the power and beauty of the specific photograph, the artist’s place in the history of the medium, the quality and rarity of the work, and its relationship to the Museum’s existing collection. Photographs from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries will be presented.
VISITING SCHOLAR: Kim Beil
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Kim Beil, a photo historian based at Stanford University and author of Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography and Anonymous Objects: Inscrutable Photographs and the Unknown discusses her creative way of looking at photographs and provides a peek into her next project.
TRAVEL: Day trip to Beaumont
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Visit to the studio and home of renowned photographer and teacher Keith Carter, a Texas legend, followed by a group lunch at a local eatery, and a visit to the McFaddin-Ward Historic House Museum, a grand Beaux-Arts Colonial style home built in 1905-06. Further details announced at a later date. Limited to 20 people; priority given to Founder, Benefactor, and Patron members.
37TH ANNUAL VOTE NIGHT
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
At this always anticipated event, the festive climax of each year, Photo Forum members learn about photographs selected by the curators and vote on which of the proposed acquisitions to support with Photo Forum funds. This year’s event will again feature multiple rounds of voting interspersed with abundant food and drink!
In addition to the events listed above, members may be invited to bonus events, gallery visits, exhibition tours, or informal conversations with visiting artists and scholars.
Members will receive invitations with event details prior to each program.
Illustrated:
Liudmila & Nelson, Absolut Revolution – La isla (Absolut Revolution – The Island), 2002, The Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection, gift of Madeleine and Harvey Plonsker, 2024.260 © Liudmila & Nelson; Platt D. Babbitt, Niagara Falls, c.1855, Museum purchase funded by the S. I. and Susie Morris Photography Endowment and Alexander K. McLanahan, 2017.122; Trevor Paglen, Image Operations. Op. 10 (detail), 2018, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund and the Henry Nias Foundation, 2024.69 © Trevor Paglen; Grete Stern, Dream No. 26: The Eternal Eye, c.1951, Museum purchase funded by the Anne Levy Charitable Trust, the JBD Foundation, courtesy of Nena Marsh, Joan Morgenstern, and Patricia Eifel, 2024.33 © Estate of Grete Stern courtesy Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche, Buenos Aires; Portrait of Kim Beil, photo credit: Austin Nelson; Keith Carter, Keith Carter, 2017 © Keith Carter; Tabitha Soren, Emailed Kiss Goodnight, 2016, printed 2023, Museum purchase by Photo Forum 2024 and Ken Frederick, 2024.102 © Tabitha Soren.
Schedule as of July 1, 2024. Schedule subject to change.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Photo Forum
Photo Forum, a patron group that supports the Photography Department at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was founded in 1988 and since then has made possible the acquisition of more than 500 photographs. Photo Forum is designed to bring photography collectors and devotees into closer contact with the Museum’s gifted curators and renowned collection through behind-the-scenes seminars led by the curatorial staff on a variety of topics related to the collection, special tours and opening receptions of the Museum’s photography exhibitions, talks by visiting artists and scholars, and visits to prominent private collections. Photo Forum members at all levels are entitled to cast ballots on works proposed for acquisition at the annual “Vote Night,” the celebratory climax of each year’s calendar. This ongoing program of activities has proven to be a stimulating and enriching experience for photograph collectors and enthusiasts, and Photo Forum has become a vital source of support for photography at the MFAH, helping the Museum meet its mission of bringing the very best of the art of photography to a broad public.
Membership Levels
Founder - $7,000
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• Private curator consultation by appointment
• May invite two guests to each program
• First priority for Photo Forum trips and private collection visits
• Four ballots for annual “Vote Night”
• An inscribed copy of each photography catalogue newly published by MFAH
Benefactor - $3,500
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• May invite one guest to each program
• Second priority for Photo Forum trips and private collection visits
• Three ballots for annual “Vote Night”
• An inscribed copy of each photography catalogue newly published by MFAH
Patron - $1,500
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• Two ballots for annual “Vote Night”
Member - $750
• Invitations for two to all Photo Forum member programs
• One ballot for annual “Vote Night”
Young Member (under 40) - $500
• Invitations for one to all Photo Forum member programs
• One ballot for annual “Vote Night”
For information about Photo Forum membership or to join or renew your membership, please contact Ashley Powell at (713) 639-7594 or apowell@mfah.org or visit www.mfah.org/patron-groups.
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