In the early 2000s, the Booth Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, began to amass a collection of Western photography, and in 2017, finally established a permanent collection and gallery devoted to the medium. The institution now houses more than 900 photographs, ranging from the 19th century to present day, including portraits of Indigenous peoples captured by Edward S. Curtis, the Montana scenes of Barbara Van Cleve, Robert Glenn Ketchum’s panoramic nature photos and many more.
A new exhibition titled Western Focus: Collecting Photography 2017-2024will highlight the museum’s outstanding collection, all of which capture the stories of the American West.
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), Grapes of Wrath, 1935, 7 x 9½ in., gelatin silver print. Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia, PH2022.007.002.
“In Western art, photography has always been a means of telling and preserving stories. Photographs and ‘the West’ entered the American consciousness roughly 170 years ago, and photography has never stopped narrating the visual mythology of the West,” says Mark Medley, the Booth Museum’s curator of photography.
Medley cites the work of 20th-century modernist photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand. In 1932, Strand was invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the Fine Arts Department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. “Strand spent two years in Mexico, traveling the countryside with large-format cameras, exploring small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Twenty varnished photogravures were published in 1940 and republished in 1967 as The Mexico Portfolio,” Medley explains. Two pieces by Strand in the upcoming exhibition, The Mexico Portfolio: Boy, Uruapan and The Mexico Portfolio: Church, Cuapiaxtla, are from the 1967 portfolio.
Elliott Erwitt (1928-2023), Reno, Nevada, 1960, 1960, 11 x 14 in., gelatin silver print. Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia, PH2024.005.003.
Another work in the exhibition is the 1935 gelatin silver print Grapes of Wrath by Dorothea Lange. “Dorothea Lange utilized her camera as a powerful tool for social advocacy, capturing poignant images of the hardships those living in the West faced,” says Medley. “This ironic print shows a lone figure walking through a desolate gray land. Overhead is a roadside billboard for the Hollywood version of John Steinbeck’s Great Depression road story.”
Barbara Van Cleve, Starry Night, 2011, 30 x 40 in., archival pigment print. Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia, PH2023.008.001, Gift of Barbara Van Cleve.
Elliott Erwitt’s gelatin silver print Reno, Nevada, 1960 captures some of the cast and crew of the contemporary Western film The Misfits. Posing for the photo are producer Frank Taylor, writer Arthur Miller, director John Houston, and actors Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift.
Visitors will be able to explore a wide selection of 21st-century photography as well, including the mysterious landscapes of Christa Blackwood, Cibachrome work by Christopher Burkett and the vivid sepia-toned photography of Cherokee/Tlingit artist Zoë Urness.
Paul Strand (1890-1976), The Mexico Portfolio: Boy, Uruapan, 1930 (printed 1967), 13½ x 10½ in., photogravure on paper, Booth Western Art Museum permanent collection, Cartersville, Georgia, PH2020.006.007.
Western Focus is organized around the visual themes of portraiture, landscapes, abstraction and historic images, documenting a variety of photographic mediums, including vintage ambrotypes, gelatin silver prints, chromogenic film and digital photography. The exhibition opens January 25 and runs through July 13. —
Western Focus: Collecting Photography 2017-2024
January 25-July 13, 2025
Booth Western Art Museum 501 Museum Drive, Cartersville, GA 30120,
(770) 387-1300, boothmuseum.org
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