Coming into Focus: A Snapshot of Photography at the Nasher

Artist Unknown, *Untitled (boy and two girls)* (detail), c. 1850s. Daguerreotype, 4 x 5 x 1 inches (1-.16 x 12.7 x 2.5 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of James and Jane Finch; 2023.29.5.

The museum’s photography collection originated in 1972, when Duke University Museum of Art purchased a portrait of artist Barbara S. Thompson by noted North Carolina photographer and educator John Menapace. Twenty years later, Duke University purchased its second photograph: Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #140, depicting a human-pig hybrid creature and part of the celebrated artist’s portrayal of female characters in classic fairy tales. The opening of the Nasher Museum in 2005 initiated a more focused approach to collecting photography building upon these two earlier acquisitions. Within its first decade, the museum acquired significant groups of works by Andy Warhol, Barkley L. Hendricks, and Mike Disfarmer, among many others, as it built a robust collection of national, international, and regional photography.

More recently the Nasher has added over 2,000 photographs to its collection that allow us, for the first time, to chronicle a broad historical sweep of the medium from its dawn in the 1830s and 40s to more recent innovative, experimental approaches. A five-year donation of over 1,500 photographs by Linda and Charles Googe (A.B. ’84) has more than doubled the museum’s photography holdings and included works by the best-known practitioners from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Edouard Baldus, Ilse Bing, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Arthur Rothstein, Nadar, and Edward Weston. Coming into Focus: A Snapshot of Photography at the Nasher celebrates these gifts and other acquisitions, highlighting a sampling of gems and illuminating a bright future of continued collecting and presenting of photography in innovative and ambitious ways.

Coming into Focus: A Snapshot of Photography at the Nasher was organized by Ellen C. Raimond, Associate Curator of Academic Initiatives and Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art., with assistance from Nasher interns, Charles Blocksidge, III (’25) and Jordan Moyd (Robertson Scholar ’26, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), and Ghita Basurto-Covarrubias (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, ‘26).

This exhibition is made possible by The Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; the Frank Edward Hanscom Endowment; the Janine and J. Tomilson Hill Family; the Neely Family Fund; the E.T. Rollins Jr. and Frances P. Rollins Fund; the J. Horst and Ruth Mary Meyer Fund; and the K. Brantley and Maxine E. Watson Endowment Fund.

Berenice Abbott, Esso Gasoline Station, 10th Avenue and 29th Street, New York, 1935. Gelatin silver print, edition 24/24, 34 7/16 × 28 inches (87.47 × 71.12 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Peter Daniel Ocko and Kathryn Axelrod in memory of Professor Jonathan K. Ocko, 2022.30.1. © Estate of Berenice Abbott
Artist Unknown, Untitled (boy and two girls), c. 1850s. Daguerreotype, 4 x 5 x 1 inches (10.16 x 12.7 x 2.54 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Dr. James and Jane Finch, 2023.29.5.
Peter Henry Emerson, The Old Order and the New from Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, 1886. Vintage mounted platinum print, 4 3/4 x 9 inches (12.1 x 22.9 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Sarit Rozycki and Robert Cromwell, 2015.16.3.
Ken Heyman, Roy Lichtenstein in mirror reflections, 1964 (printed later). Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.8 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Charles and Linda Googe, 2019.17.165. © Ken Heyman Estate.
Ming Smith, Untitled (Self Portrait with Camera) New York, NY, 1975. Archival gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.8 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Museum purchase, 2021.25.1. © Ming Smith.
MJ Sharp, Outside Amarillo, 2006 (printed 2012). Chromogenic print, edition 2/6, 50 x 40 inches (127 x 101.6 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Frank Konhaus, Ellen Cassilly, and the Cassilhaus Collection, 2012.19.1. © MJ Sharp. Image courtesy of the artist.
Paul J. Woolf, Still life with Chesterfield cigarettes, c. 1930s. Vintage gelatin silver print, 6 5/8 × 9 1/8 inches (16.83 × 23.18 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Charles and Linda Googe, 2019.17.202. © Estate of Paul J. Woolf.
Genevieve Gaignard, The Quietest Room in the House, 2018. Chromogenic print, edition 1/3, 32 1/4 × 48 5/16 inches (81.9 × 122.7 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger, 2019.1.1. © Genevieve Gaignard. Image courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles.
Mary Ellen Mark, Nancy Spungen Portrait, Bars, 1977 (printed later). Gelatin silver print, edition 3/25, 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.64 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Peter Daniel Ocko and Kathryn Axelrod in memory of Professor Jonathan K. Ocko, 2022.30.49. © Mary Ellen Mark.
David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Master Miller, Son of Professor, 1843–1847. Salt print from calotype negative, 7 7/8 × 5 13/16 inches (20 × 14.8 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Gift of Sarit Rozycki and Robert Cromwell, 2014.28.25.
Selected Works