Every month Malcolm Daniel, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, shares a newsletter including recent events and gifts to the department, a spotlight on new acquisitions, and invitations to upcoming events in Houston and beyond.
Please email us at gallery@catherinecouturier.com if you'd like to be added to the newsletter's mailing list.
October 30, 2024
Dear friends of the MFAH Photography Department,
Earlier this month, more than a hundred collectors, curators, and dealers from across the country as well as Argentina, Canada, England, Belgium, and Germany, came to Houston for the annual conference of The Daguerreian Society, an organization dedicated to the history, technology, art, and preservation of nineteenth-century photography. Attendees were welcomed to the MFAH by director Gary Tinterow at a dinner reception in the Kinder Building’s Wilson Boardroom Thursday evening following a day of collection tours both here and elsewhere. In addition to the permanent collection installation in our Kinder Building photography galleries, we set up a temporary display of daguerreotypes and photographic prints in the Study Center, and it was gratifying to see colleagues from far and wide so impressed by our collection—from acquisitions that Anne Tucker made (the great Meade Brothers daguerreotype of Sam Houston, for instance!), to treasures from the Manfred Heiting Collection, to 19th-century photographs that I’ve been able to bring into the collection in the past ten years. The symposium talks took place on Friday in our beautiful Lynn Wyatt Theater, with presentations on everything from the Civil War to Kit Carson to the first photographically illustrated dog show catalog from 1863! As happens so often, most attendees were visiting for the first time and left impressed not only by the richness of the photography collection, but by the size and scope of the Museum as a whole and by the warmth and hospitality of our city. At the event’s concluding dinner on Saturday, I was honored to receive the Society’s Fellowship Award “for the advancement of scholarship in the field of photo history and the willingness to share that knowledge with his contemporaries and future generations of historians, scholars, and collectors.”
Attendees at the Daguerreian Society conference view works in the Anne Wilkes Tucker Photography Study Center.
In recognition of the Daguerreian Society conference in Houston, one of our Kinder Building galleries is currently devoted to 19th-century photographs.
And now for something entirely different…
Trevor Paglen, Image Operations. Op. 10 (detail), 2018. Single-channel digital video installation, color, sound, 23 minutes. Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund and the Henry Nias Foundation, 2024.69 © Trevor Paglen
At the opposite end of our photo timeline from daguerreotypes, Trevor Paglen’s Image Operations. Op.10, a 23 minute video that highlights emerging forms of computer vision and machine learning. A quartet performs Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10. As the video evolves, the perspective of the view slowly changes from that of a camera, to that of an array of computer vision systems “interpreting” what the camera is seeing. At first, we see the video through simple face detection software. As the video evolves, we begin to see the performers through the machinic eyes of algorithms used in self-driving cars, guided missiles, drones, and powerful artificial intelligence algorithms designed to estimate age, gender, and the emotional states of the performers. In sum, we watch a music performance, and simultaneously watch a version of the performance as seen by computer vision algorithms. Image Operations. Op.10 is now on view in Cullinan Hall in the Caroline Wiess Law Building through November 20. Photo Forum members will have a final chance that evening to view the video during a reception and hear the artist speak about art and artificial intelligence.
It’s not even Christmas yet, but the gifts are pouring in…
Recent meetings of the Photography Subcommittee and the Collections Committee of the Board have approved a number of magnificent gifts to the MFAH
- From the Pilara Family Foundation, we have received more than 400 photographs including our first works by contemporary artists John Chiara, Erica Deeman, Daniel Gordon, Austin Leong, and Corine Vermeulen; additional works by Lucas Foglia, Bruce Gilden, Katy Grannan, Todd Hido, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Bryan Schutmaat, Tabitha Soren, Alec Soth, and Mark Steinmetz; rich groups of work by mid- and late-20th-century photographers Joan Colom, Paolo Gasparini, Fred Herzog, Marvin Newman, Joe Schwartz, and Joseph Szabo; and nine portfolios of work constituting a full survey of Henry Wessell’s career. We are incredibly grateful to Andy and Mary Pilara for this incredible gift and to Allie Haeusslein and Chris McCall, directors of Pier 24 for their help in facilitating the gift.
Erica Deeman (British, born 1977), Untitled 15, 2014. Chromogenic print, 45 × 45 in. (114.3 × 114.3 cm). Gift of the Pilara Family Foundation (2024.869) © Erica Deeman
- We have also received a magnificent gift from Larry Warsh, who, more than anyone else, introduced to the American art world the dissident art movement and dynamic burst of creativity that developed in China in the wake of the 1989 Tienanmen Square crackdown. The gift’s twenty-seven works (some of them multi-part) from the 1990s and early 2000s treat themes of performance, the body, globalization, and social and political critique. Added to works from the same period already in the collection Warsh’s gift of photographs by Cang Xin, Rong Rong, Wang Jinsong, Hong Lei, Hong Hao, Hai Bo, Sheng Qi, Zhang Peili, Ciu Xiuwen, Lin Tianmiao, Huang Yan, and Zhang Dali gives the MFAH a strong representation of this pivotal movement.
Hai Bo (Chinese, born 1962), I am Chairman Mao's Red Guard, 2000. Chromogenic prints, 24 × 17 in. (61 × 43.2 cm) each. Gift of Art Issue Editions, Inc. (2024.843.A,.B) © Hai Bo
- Madeleine and Harvey Plonsker have completed their promised gift, about which I’ve written in the past, with the donation of 171 contemporary Cuban photographs and small-scale sculptures, many of which are now on view in the exhibition Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography on the third floor of the Kinder Building.
- From the Nickolas Muray Photo Archives and longtime friend Kathy Levitt, we have received 14 photographs by Muray of Frida Kahlo, with whom he was romantically linked. Muray’s widely-reproduced photographs of Kahlo from the late 1930s and 1940s are among his best-known works and the best-known images of her. Photographs from this gift will be included in the Museum’s 2026 exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon, traveling to Tate afterwards.
Nickolas Muray (American, born Hungary, 1892–1965), Frida, Coyoacán, 1939, printed later. Carbon print, 13 3/4 × 9 1/8 in. (35 × 23.2 cm). Gift of Kathryn Levitt (2024.669) © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives
- In addition, I signal our thanks for gifts of photographs by Liz Deschenes, Bruce Wrighton, Wardell Milan, Carroll Parrott Blue, Brad Temkin, Forrest Moses, James Balog, Misha de Ridder, Brian Finke, Varujan Boghosian, and others from various friends and supporters.
Celebrating Robert Frank’s centennial…
November 9th will be the 100th anniversary of Robert Frank’s birth, and there are celebratory events taking place around the world. In addition to a major exhibition of Frank’s work at MoMA, Frank’s centennial is marked by exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the MFA Boston, Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, and, of course, Lisa Volpe’s Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955 on view next at the Brandywine Museum of Art Feburary 8 through May 11, 2025.
Here in Houston, we’ll mark Frank’s birthday with a screening of his film Candy Mountain as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. Made in collaboration with Rudy Wurlitzer in 1987, Candy Mountain embodies the filmmakers’ shared passions for New York and Nova Scotia, open roads and dead ends, music and musicians, and strange encounters and unlikely friendships. The film features appearances by Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Joe Strummer, David Johansen, Rita McNeil, Arto Lindsay, and Dr. John. Saturday, November 9 at 2:30 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater. Visit the MFAH website for more information or tickets, and use the discount code FILMBUFFMFAH for a reduced ticket price.
Candy Mountain. 1987. Switzerland/Canada/France. Directed by Robert Frank, Rudy Wurlitzer. Screenplay by Wurlitzer. With Kevin J. O’Connor, Bulle Ogier, Tom Waits, Joe Strummer. 91 min
More on the big screen…
Also playing at the MFAH as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater is a film based on the work and diaries of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, whose photographs you might remember from the FotoFest 2024 biennial, Critical Geography. “In the last decades of the Soviet Union, a young, queer female photographer breaks free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embraces the underground hedonism of the times on a wild journey to freedom and self-acceptance,” reads the film description. I’m Not Everything I Want to Be captures Jarcovjáková’s experiences through thousands of raw snapshots documenting the lives of queer individuals, migrants and other marginalized peoples. More information, trailer, and tickets on the MFAH website.
New acquisition in focus…
Laura Gilpin (American, 1891–1979) Castillo Interior with Boy, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, 1932. Gelatin silver print, 13 3/4 ×
9 5/8 in. (34.9 × 24.4 cm). Museum purchase funded by W. Burt Nelson (2024.602) © 1979 Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Laura Gilpin was one of the most prolific photographers of the 20th century, with a career spanning over seventy years. Known for her sensitive portrayals of indigenous people and the lands of the Southwest, Gilpin was passionate about creating images that emphasized the histories and proud communities of the Americas that were too often ignored in 20th-century art. In 1932, Gilpin traveled to Mexico to document the Maya ruins at Chichén Itzá. This image shows the site’s most famous structure, El Castillo or the Kukulkán (Feathered Serpent) Pyramid. Gilpin wrote that the building “stands with majestic dignity, a supreme expression of the thought and feeling of a great people.” It is notable that in her words Gilpin puts the Maya people in a present tense, rather than pushing them into ancient history. Her photos reflect this, too, capturing the modern Maya amid the architecture of the past. In this stunning image—also a luscious print—a young Maya descendent sits in the interior of the Castillo. He is posed symbolically between the past—signified by the ancient stones—and the future—suggested by the bright, and open doorway. Big thanks to Burt Nelson for funding this purchase!
In the press…
I was happy to be interviewed for the new issue of the magazine The Classic as it gave me a chance to speak enthusiastically about the MFAH, its history, collections, supporters, and programs. You can find the interview on pages 78-89.
We continue to garner positive press for the exhibition Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography including:
- Cuban Photography’s Captivating Journey at MFAH: Through a Revolutionary Lens in Rain, which describes the show as “more than an exhibition; it's a cultural phenomenon that no art lover or social historian should miss.”
- Chris Vognar’s piece in Chron, New MFAH exhibit chronicles post-revolutionary Cuba through photos.
I hope to bump into some of you at the Paris Photo fair next week… one way to take our minds off the election! Let me know if you like reading these periodic letters about photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Wishing you many treats and no tricks,
Scott Dalton (American, born 1968), Halloween, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 2012. Inkjet print, 19 13/16 × 19 13/16 in. (50.3 × 50.3 cm). Gift of Charles Dee Mitchell (2021.446) © Scott Dalton
Malcolm
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Every month Malcolm Daniel, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, shares a newsletter including recent events and gifts to the department, a spotlight on new acquisitions, and invitations to upcoming events in Houston and beyond.
Please email us at gallery@catherinecouturier.com if you'd like to be added to the newsletter's mailing list.
October 30, 2024
Dear friends of the MFAH Photography Department,
Earlier this month, more than a hundred collectors, curators, and dealers from across the country as well as Argentina, Canada, England, Belgium, and Germany, came to Houston for the annual conference of The Daguerreian Society, an organization dedicated to the history, technology, art, and preservation of nineteenth-century photography. Attendees were welcomed to the MFAH by director Gary Tinterow at a dinner reception in the Kinder Building’s Wilson Boardroom Thursday evening following a day of collection tours both here and elsewhere. In addition to the permanent collection installation in our Kinder Building photography galleries, we set up a temporary display of daguerreotypes and photographic prints in the Study Center, and it was gratifying to see colleagues from far and wide so impressed by our collection—from acquisitions that Anne Tucker made (the great Meade Brothers daguerreotype of Sam Houston, for instance!), to treasures from the Manfred Heiting Collection, to 19th-century photographs that I’ve been able to bring into the collection in the past ten years. The symposium talks took place on Friday in our beautiful Lynn Wyatt Theater, with presentations on everything from the Civil War to Kit Carson to the first photographically illustrated dog show catalog from 1863! As happens so often, most attendees were visiting for the first time and left impressed not only by the richness of the photography collection, but by the size and scope of the Museum as a whole and by the warmth and hospitality of our city. At the event’s concluding dinner on Saturday, I was honored to receive the Society’s Fellowship Award “for the advancement of scholarship in the field of photo history and the willingness to share that knowledge with his contemporaries and future generations of historians, scholars, and collectors.”
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Attendees at the Daguerreian Society conference view works in the Anne Wilkes Tucker Photography Study Center. |
In recognition of the Daguerreian Society conference in Houston, one of our Kinder Building galleries is currently devoted to 19th-century photographs. |
And now for something entirely different…
Trevor Paglen, Image Operations. Op. 10 (detail), 2018. Single-channel digital video installation, color, sound, 23 minutes. Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund and the Henry Nias Foundation, 2024.69 © Trevor Paglen
At the opposite end of our photo timeline from daguerreotypes, Trevor Paglen’s Image Operations. Op.10, a 23 minute video that highlights emerging forms of computer vision and machine learning. A quartet performs Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10. As the video evolves, the perspective of the view slowly changes from that of a camera, to that of an array of computer vision systems “interpreting” what the camera is seeing. At first, we see the video through simple face detection software. As the video evolves, we begin to see the performers through the machinic eyes of algorithms used in self-driving cars, guided missiles, drones, and powerful artificial intelligence algorithms designed to estimate age, gender, and the emotional states of the performers. In sum, we watch a music performance, and simultaneously watch a version of the performance as seen by computer vision algorithms. Image Operations. Op.10 is now on view in Cullinan Hall in the Caroline Wiess Law Building through November 20. Photo Forum members will have a final chance that evening to view the video during a reception and hear the artist speak about art and artificial intelligence.
It’s not even Christmas yet, but the gifts are pouring in…
Recent meetings of the Photography Subcommittee and the Collections Committee of the Board have approved a number of magnificent gifts to the MFAH
- From the Pilara Family Foundation, we have received more than 400 photographs including our first works by contemporary artists John Chiara, Erica Deeman, Daniel Gordon, Austin Leong, and Corine Vermeulen; additional works by Lucas Foglia, Bruce Gilden, Katy Grannan, Todd Hido, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Bryan Schutmaat, Tabitha Soren, Alec Soth, and Mark Steinmetz; rich groups of work by mid- and late-20th-century photographers Joan Colom, Paolo Gasparini, Fred Herzog, Marvin Newman, Joe Schwartz, and Joseph Szabo; and nine portfolios of work constituting a full survey of Henry Wessell’s career. We are incredibly grateful to Andy and Mary Pilara for this incredible gift and to Allie Haeusslein and Chris McCall, directors of Pier 24 for their help in facilitating the gift.
Erica Deeman (British, born 1977), Untitled 15, 2014. Chromogenic print, 45 × 45 in. (114.3 × 114.3 cm). Gift of the Pilara Family Foundation (2024.869) © Erica Deeman
- We have also received a magnificent gift from Larry Warsh, who, more than anyone else, introduced to the American art world the dissident art movement and dynamic burst of creativity that developed in China in the wake of the 1989 Tienanmen Square crackdown. The gift’s twenty-seven works (some of them multi-part) from the 1990s and early 2000s treat themes of performance, the body, globalization, and social and political critique. Added to works from the same period already in the collection Warsh’s gift of photographs by Cang Xin, Rong Rong, Wang Jinsong, Hong Lei, Hong Hao, Hai Bo, Sheng Qi, Zhang Peili, Ciu Xiuwen, Lin Tianmiao, Huang Yan, and Zhang Dali gives the MFAH a strong representation of this pivotal movement.
Hai Bo (Chinese, born 1962), I am Chairman Mao's Red Guard, 2000. Chromogenic prints, 24 × 17 in. (61 × 43.2 cm) each. Gift of Art Issue Editions, Inc. (2024.843.A,.B) © Hai Bo
- Madeleine and Harvey Plonsker have completed their promised gift, about which I’ve written in the past, with the donation of 171 contemporary Cuban photographs and small-scale sculptures, many of which are now on view in the exhibition Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography on the third floor of the Kinder Building.
- From the Nickolas Muray Photo Archives and longtime friend Kathy Levitt, we have received 14 photographs by Muray of Frida Kahlo, with whom he was romantically linked. Muray’s widely-reproduced photographs of Kahlo from the late 1930s and 1940s are among his best-known works and the best-known images of her. Photographs from this gift will be included in the Museum’s 2026 exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon, traveling to Tate afterwards.
Nickolas Muray (American, born Hungary, 1892–1965), Frida, Coyoacán, 1939, printed later. Carbon print, 13 3/4 × 9 1/8 in. (35 × 23.2 cm). Gift of Kathryn Levitt (2024.669) © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives
- In addition, I signal our thanks for gifts of photographs by Liz Deschenes, Bruce Wrighton, Wardell Milan, Carroll Parrott Blue, Brad Temkin, Forrest Moses, James Balog, Misha de Ridder, Brian Finke, Varujan Boghosian, and others from various friends and supporters.
Celebrating Robert Frank’s centennial…
November 9th will be the 100th anniversary of Robert Frank’s birth, and there are celebratory events taking place around the world. In addition to a major exhibition of Frank’s work at MoMA, Frank’s centennial is marked by exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the MFA Boston, Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, and, of course, Lisa Volpe’s Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955 on view next at the Brandywine Museum of Art Feburary 8 through May 11, 2025.
Here in Houston, we’ll mark Frank’s birthday with a screening of his film Candy Mountain as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. Made in collaboration with Rudy Wurlitzer in 1987, Candy Mountain embodies the filmmakers’ shared passions for New York and Nova Scotia, open roads and dead ends, music and musicians, and strange encounters and unlikely friendships. The film features appearances by Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Joe Strummer, David Johansen, Rita McNeil, Arto Lindsay, and Dr. John. Saturday, November 9 at 2:30 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater. Visit the MFAH website for more information or tickets, and use the discount code FILMBUFFMFAH for a reduced ticket price.
Candy Mountain. 1987. Switzerland/Canada/France. Directed by Robert Frank, Rudy Wurlitzer. Screenplay by Wurlitzer. With Kevin J. O’Connor, Bulle Ogier, Tom Waits, Joe Strummer. 91 min
More on the big screen…
Also playing at the MFAH as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater is a film based on the work and diaries of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, whose photographs you might remember from the FotoFest 2024 biennial, Critical Geography. “In the last decades of the Soviet Union, a young, queer female photographer breaks free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embraces the underground hedonism of the times on a wild journey to freedom and self-acceptance,” reads the film description. I’m Not Everything I Want to Be captures Jarcovjáková’s experiences through thousands of raw snapshots documenting the lives of queer individuals, migrants and other marginalized peoples. More information, trailer, and tickets on the MFAH website.
New acquisition in focus…
Laura Gilpin (American, 1891–1979) Castillo Interior with Boy, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, 1932. Gelatin silver print, 13 3/4 ×
9 5/8 in. (34.9 × 24.4 cm). Museum purchase funded by W. Burt Nelson (2024.602) © 1979 Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Laura Gilpin was one of the most prolific photographers of the 20th century, with a career spanning over seventy years. Known for her sensitive portrayals of indigenous people and the lands of the Southwest, Gilpin was passionate about creating images that emphasized the histories and proud communities of the Americas that were too often ignored in 20th-century art. In 1932, Gilpin traveled to Mexico to document the Maya ruins at Chichén Itzá. This image shows the site’s most famous structure, El Castillo or the Kukulkán (Feathered Serpent) Pyramid. Gilpin wrote that the building “stands with majestic dignity, a supreme expression of the thought and feeling of a great people.” It is notable that in her words Gilpin puts the Maya people in a present tense, rather than pushing them into ancient history. Her photos reflect this, too, capturing the modern Maya amid the architecture of the past. In this stunning image—also a luscious print—a young Maya descendent sits in the interior of the Castillo. He is posed symbolically between the past—signified by the ancient stones—and the future—suggested by the bright, and open doorway. Big thanks to Burt Nelson for funding this purchase!
In the press…
I was happy to be interviewed for the new issue of the magazine The Classic as it gave me a chance to speak enthusiastically about the MFAH, its history, collections, supporters, and programs. You can find the interview on pages 78-89.
We continue to garner positive press for the exhibition Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography including:
- Cuban Photography’s Captivating Journey at MFAH: Through a Revolutionary Lens in Rain, which describes the show as “more than an exhibition; it's a cultural phenomenon that no art lover or social historian should miss.”
- Chris Vognar’s piece in Chron, New MFAH exhibit chronicles post-revolutionary Cuba through photos.
I hope to bump into some of you at the Paris Photo fair next week… one way to take our minds off the election! Let me know if you like reading these periodic letters about photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Wishing you many treats and no tricks,
Scott Dalton (American, born 1968), Halloween, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 2012. Inkjet print, 19 13/16 × 19 13/16 in. (50.3 × 50.3 cm). Gift of Charles Dee Mitchell (2021.446) © Scott Dalton
Malcolm
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