Museum Collection: Photography July 13, 2010

The photography collection at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art originated in the exhibition 'Attitudes: Photography in the 1970s,' organized by Fred Parker, the first part-time curator of photographs at the museum. This groundbreaking exhibition featured works by many up-and-coming photographers who are now nationally recognized. A significant number of these photographs were acquired by the museum and formed the basis of the collection. Major gifts in 1983 and 1985 from Arthur and Yolanda Steinman provided an important historical core of vintage and modernist works around which the collection continues to grow. Areas of particular strength and focus include: works by California photographers from 1860 on, contemporary photographers from Western Pacific Rim countries (Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam), artists exploring issues of science and science-based art, and selected examples by acknowledged master photographers.