This talk will provide an overview of the key practitioners, teaching philosophy, and lasting impact of the photography program of the Institute of Design, Chicago. Sometimes called the “New Bauhaus,” this program was begun in the late 1930s by the brilliant artist and educator Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Only months before his death in 1946, Moholy-Nagy hired Harry Callahan to head the ID’s photography program. This talk focuses on the nature of this program, and its most important personalities, during the years of Callahan’s tenure.

Keith F. Davis is Senior Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. He received a master’s degree in 1979 in art history from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. After a research internship at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, 1978–79, he became Curator of the Fine Art Collections, Hallmark Cards, Inc. Upon the gift to the museum of the Hallmark Photographic Collection, in December 2005, Davis became the Nelson-Atkins’s founding curator of photography.

Since 1979, he has curated nearly 100 exhibitions, many of which have been toured to leading museums across the United States and overseas. In addition to teaching and lecturing widely on the history of photography, he is the author of thirty catalogues and books, including An American Century of Photography, From Dry-Plate to Digital: The Hallmark Photographic Collection, 2nd edition (1999); The Origins of American Photography, From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839–1885 (2007); Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Work (2011); The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker (2012); and Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath (2015). His various awards include a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1986–87) for his work on the Civil-War-era photographer George N. Barnard. He was honored to be featured in James Stourton’s Great Collectors of Our Time: Art Collecting Since 1945 (Scala, 2007).

The talk will be held in English and followed by a Q&A session.

In collaboration with the U.S. Embassy Berlin on the occasion of the exhibition “New Bauhaus Chicago: Experiment Fotografie und Film” at bauhausarchiv Berlin

Lecture: Thursday, Jan 25, 2018, 5:30 pm
The talk will be held in English
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Neue Schule für Fotografie

Brunnenstraße 188-190, 10119 Berlin
[Mitte | Mitte]

Admission free