Beaumont Newhall

Beaumont Newhall (1908–1993) was an art historian, writer, photographer and the first curator of photography at Museum of Modern Art, New York (1940-1945). His book The History of Photography (1939) remains one of the most significant accounts in the field and has become a classic photo history textbook. He studied art history and museum studies at Harvard University (1930). Newhall mounted a survey exhibition of photography for the Museum in 1937, Photography, 1839-1937. The 800-work exhibition toured the country and the catalog for the show became a staple for the history of photography. Ironically, Newhall's treatment of photography as high art rankled the museum's board of trustees, who accepted public criticism that the Museum was turning a popular medium into an avenue of snobbery. [1] In 1948, Beaumont Newhall became the first Curator of Photography at the George Eastman House, and then served as its Director from 1958 to 1971, building a significant photography collection. After his retirement, Newhall accepted a position as Visiting Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico, where he helped to establish the first doctoral program in the history of photography at an American university [2].

Literature

By Newhall

• A Short Critical History of Photography, 1940.
• The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present Day, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1949, 256 pp; 1968, 5th ed., 1982.
• with Nancy Newhall, Masters of Photography, New York: Castle Books & George Braziller, Inc., 1958.
• Frederick Evans, 1964.
• Latent Image: The Discovery of Photography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967.
• Airborne Camera: The World from the Air and Outer Space, NY: Hastings House Publishers, 1969.
• The Daguerreotype in America, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1961; 1976.
• Photography, Essays & Images: Illustrated Readings in the History of Photography, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980.
• In plain sight: the photographs of Beaumont Newhall, 1983.
• Focus: Memoirs of a Life in Photography, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

On Newhall

• "The Challenge of Photography to This Art Historian". in Perspectives on Photography: Essays in Honor of Beumont Newhall, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986:1-9.
• Marquis, Alice Goldfarb, Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: Missionary for the Modern, Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989:137-138.
• Ya'ara Gil Glazer, "A new kind of history? The challenges of contemporary histories of photography", Journal of Art Historiography, no. 3, December 2010 PDF.

External links

• Newhall at Wikipedia
• Newhall in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Newhall at Social Archive
• Beaumont and Nancy Newhall papers, 1843-1993
• Newhall at Creative photography