Curator's Corner

documentary photography

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Curator's Corner

Documenting Child Labor: Jacob Riis

Monday, March 25, 2024 | Karl Cole

If we think that only adult women have played an important role in American history, then we are sadly mistaken. Before child labor laws were passed in the United States (1 September 1916), young wome ...

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Curator's Corner

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Dean Brown

Monday, January 15, 2024 | Karl Cole

This year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on the actual birthday of this great American leader. To mark the day, I will show you the work of photographer Dean Brown. The artist died way too young pu ...

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Curator's Corner

Poverty Awareness Month: Zoe Strauss

Monday, January 8, 2024 | Karl Cole

Poverty Awareness Month evolved out of recognition by Congress in 2009 that the U.S. poverty rate is rising at an alarming level every decade. I doubt it is any coincidence that January was chosen as ...

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Curator's Corner

Art about Working People

Tuesday, September 5, 2023 | Karl Cole

The earliest ideas about a day to honor working Americans came about from labor unions in the 1880s. In fact, the idea of a national holiday is thought to have come from labor union officials in New Y ...

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Curator's Corner

AAPI Heritage Month 2023: Chan Chao

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 | Karl Cole

Photography was a groundbreaking art form when it was first introduced. Quite soon after its development, numerous Western photographers explored photography for documentary and journalistic purposes. ...

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Curator's Corner

Women's History Month: Lucy Ashjian

Monday, March 20, 2023 | Karl Cole

In the first half of the 1900s, there were numerous pioneering women documentary photographers who defined the genre. This was particularly true during the Great Depression (1929–1940), the seve ...

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Curator's Corner

Facing the Past: Jennifer Karady

Monday, January 9, 2023 | Karl Cole

Many people would probably prefer to forget about the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is something therapeutic about facing them and admitting they happened. Artist Jennifer Karady uses h ...

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Curator's Corner

A Visual Tribute to Labor Day Week 2022

Monday, September 5, 2022 | Karl Cole

Aside from the myth of Sunday as a “day of rest” in the West, it’s interesting to me that there is only one day a year that celebrates “labor” in the U.S. The movement to ...

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Curator's Corner

Pride Month 2021 II: Berenice Abbott

Monday, June 7, 2021 | Karl Cole

By the time of the severe world economic downturn of the Great Depression (1929–1940) in America, many women artists were professional photographers and extremely successful in the field of ...

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Curator's Corner

A Christmas Card: Mary Ellen Mark

Monday, December 16, 2019 | Karl Cole

Leave it to Mary Ellen Mark to sum up the ironies of a time of year that is touted as “joyous” and “home for the holidays” in social media! Kudos to the late artist for pointin ...

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