Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895–1925

Exhibition Website

Jun 22 2017 - Sep 16 2018

This exhibition is the first in over forty years to survey the work of Clarence White (United States, 1871–1925), a founding member of the Photo-Secession, a gifted photographer known for his beautiful scenes of quiet domesticity and outdoor idylls, and a major teacher and mentor. It will survey White's career from its beginnings in 1895 in Newark, Ohio, to his death in Mexico in 1925.

Clarence White and His World will bring this essential American artist to the attention of new generations of art enthusiasts and reclaim his place in the American art canon. The exhibition will provide a fresh understanding of White's career, as shaped by the aesthetic, social, economic, technological, and political transformations of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. White's early work shares with the nascent Arts and Crafts Movement some of the most progressive values of the time, including the advocacy of hand production, closeness to nature, socialism, Japonisme, and the simple life. His move to New York in 1906 and involvement with the influential Photo-Secession group mark a fundamental shift in his production as it grew to encompass nudes made in collaboration with Alfred Stieglitz, commercial illustration for literary works, and deepening relevance to his teaching. Indeed, Clarence White the teacher has often overshadowed Clarence White the artist; this exhibition seeks to strike a new balance, demonstrating his radical techniques in both arenas. In addition to more than 100 prints, albums, and illustrated books by White himself, the exhibition will include paintings, prints, and drawings by artists who influenced or were influenced by pictorial photography, as well as photographs by White's closest friends, collaborators, and students, including Gertrude Käsebier, Alfred Stieglitz, and Alvin L. Colburn.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

  • Various Media
  • American
  • 20th Century
  • Clarence White
  • Gertrude Käsebier
  • Alfred Stieglitz
  • Alvin L. Colburn

Exhibition Venues & Dates