FULL EXPOSURE: Femininity in Photographic Portraiture

Full Exposure will feature approximately 120 photographs including works by Imogen Cunningham, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton, Nobuyoshi Araki, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel Peter Witkin, and Judy Dater and many others. All of the photographs come from an extraordinary private collection in Santa Rosa that has never been shown publicly.

The collection focuses on the female nude and the guiding interests of the collector have been images that a) emphasize beauty, b) are Surreal in content or appearance, or c) are humorous or otherwise provocative. The photographs range from nudes photographed in the late nineteenth century to works recently commissioned; most are black and white, but many are color. 

 With the exhibition, the Museum will focus on issues around the relationship of the nude sitter to the photographer and to the cultural, artistic or political context within which they were produced. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website