New to View begins the Museum’s second century of collecting photography with a selection of its newest photographic treasures, acquired during the past five years, and never before on view. In 1904, the Worcester Art Museum became one of the nation’s first to exhibit photography as fine art. This eventful history was documented in last year’s anniversary exhibition “Photography at the Worcester Art Museum: Keeping Shadows”, which is still on national tour. In recent decades, as recognition of photographic art has grown, and the popularity of collecting has ignited a thriving market, the Museum has kept pace through careful purchases and generous gifts to the collection. New to View showcases this dynamically growing collection. The exhibition features Outward Bound, a platinum print by the father of creative photography in America, Alfred Stieglitz, who placed a shipboard portrait in a setting that presaged Modernism. In the Surrealist masterpiece Le violon d’Ingres, Man Ray decorated his lover’s back with the f-holes of a violin, transforming the image and provoking a range of associations. Important acquisitions of contemporary photography are also shown, including a haunting portrait by Bill Jacobson, Seamus A Ryan’s crisp studies of abstract form in seashells (as used on the cover of the museum's catalogue, see left), and a fascinating view from inside a camera obscura by Abelardo Morell.

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http://www.worcesterart.org/Exhibitions/past/new_to_view.html