Modern Women / Modern Vision

Photographs from the Bank of America Collection

Oct. 19, 2024 through Jan. 12, 2025

Members Preview on Thursday, Oct. 17, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Drawn from Bank of America’s extensive photography collection, Modern Women / Modern Vision presents more than 80 images made between 1905 and 2015. Diverse in style, tone, and subject, these legendary images range from spontaneous to composed as well as monumental to intimate in scale. The exhibition reveals the bold and dynamic ways women artists have contributed to the development and evolution of photography in the face of discrimination by critics and consumers alike.

The exhibition unfolds through a closer look at six themes within the collection: Modernist Innovators; Documentary Photography and the New Deal; The Photo League; Modern Masters; Exploring the Environment; and The Global Contemporary Lens. Familiar works by Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie Mae Weems as well as iconic portraits by Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus; street photography by Ruth Orkin and Helen Levitt; and edgy appropriation photo-collages by Barbara Kruger combine to tell a dynamic story of the 20th century in a display rich in history, beauty, poignancy, and power.

Women photographers have played a vital role in framing the modern experience through the lens of the camera. They have embraced the art form from its introduction in 1839 through the technological developments of the early 1900s and have used their perspective to produce extraordinary views of the world around them. 

Women have negotiated waves of social, political, and economic change, increasingly leveraging the camera as a means of creativity, financial independence, and personal freedom. Disrupting the longstanding constraints placed on women’s social behavior and gender roles, early trailblazers helped establish photography as a vital form of creative expression. They also laid the groundwork and served as role models for subsequent generations of artists.

Gallery Talk: The Problem with Portraits
Mary Murray, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
Wednesday, Oct. 23, 11 a.m., Free

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Mary Murray will highlight a selection of photographs by Dorothea Lange, Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, and others in this discussion about the uncomfortable nature of authentic representation.

This exhibition has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program.