March 3 through May 27, 2001 Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850-2000 Great Hall High Bay Presented by the Art Department
Exhibition Sponsors	Eye focus: exhibit reception shots

Edward Weston, Nude, 1936, Gelatin silver print, Gift of the Bell Fund

Capturing Light will focus on rare, vintage works by approximately 100 noted American photographers working in the state over the past 150 years, including photographs by Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Robert Frank, Richard Misrach, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others.

"Much of what we think of as Great American Photography is in fact Californian," said Drew Heath Johnson, Curator of Photography at OMCA. "Names such as Weston, Watkins, Ansel Adams or Dorothea Lange are among the first that occur to us when we consider the history of photography worldwide. California photographers have shown unusual flexibility, exploring new techniques and theories in fresh, innovative ways."

This exhibition will draw from the museum’s permanent collection of more than a million photographs. One of the most interesting aspects of the collection is its mixture of traditional fine art photography with extraordinary images by photojournalists, commercial photographers, and amateurs. "For nearly forty years, the Oakland Museum of California has collected the work of California photographers, both celebrated and obscure," observed Mr. Johnson. "The result is certainly the most distinguished and extensive collection of photographic imagery relating to California anywhere." Complementing the photographs is a selection of related artifacts and documents from the museum’s collections—cameras and photo equipment showing the evolution of imaging technology, early trade and exhibition catalogs, period journals and magazines, advertisements, historical documents, and personal memorabilia.

Charles Leander Weed, Yo-Semite Valley from the Mariposa Trail, 1864, Mammoth-plate albumen print, Gift of the Oakland Museum Women's Board

Becoming a state in 1850, only a decade after the invention of photography, California has attracted and inspired seminal works by some of the best-known photographers in the world. The incomparable natural beauty and cultural liveliness of the state has made it a forefront of American photography, a place that has produced innovative and influential photographs, ranging from early daguerreotypes of the Gold Rush to the digital images of today. The exhibition is organized chronologically in eight major sections: The Pioneers: Landscape and Studio (1850 – 1880); Late Century (1880 – 1906); Pictorialism (1906 – 1935); Modernism and Group f.64 (1925 – 1945); Dorothea Lange and Documentary Photography (1930 – 1945); Postwar (1945 – 1960); Sixties and Seventies (1960 – 1980); and Toward the Millennium (1980 – 2000).

John Divola, Falling/Flying, 1984, Dye transfer print, Shirley Burden Fund for Photography

A 380-page catalog that will serve, long-term, as a handbook to OMCA’s photography collections accompanies the exhibition. Published by W.W. Norton & Co., New York, the catalog is richly illustrated with 200 color plates. It is the first in-depth examination of the history of photography in California and contains essays by Therese Thau Heyman, former Senior Curator of Photography at OMCA; Peter Palmquist, an independent photography curator; Naomi Rosenblum, Professor of the History of Photography at the Parsons School of Design; Sally Stein, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Irvine; Andy Grundberg, photography critic and curator; and Drew Heath Johnson, Curator of Photography at OMCA. The essays are supplemented with more than 100 artist biographies and notes to the plates.The catalogue is available in OMCA's online store.

Complementing the Capturing Light exhibition will be an array of public programs that will bring the photographic experience to members of the community. Included in the programs will be a family portrait day at the museum, a walk through the exhibition with photographers who work is included in the show, a symposium titled "The Exploding Dark Room" in which digital photography, computer image manipulation, and the future of photography will be discussed, and a collector’s panel describing the fun and failures of building a photo collection. Further details and dates will be announced as plans are completed.

Capturing Light is sponsored by Oakland Museum Women's Board.
Supporting Sponsors are California Council for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Anonymous, W.W. Norton, Inc. Additional Support from YourWall.com: the space for fine art photography, Thomas Reynolds Gallery, San Francisco

An exhibition that also opened in March at the Oakland Museum of California is After the Storm: Bob Walker and the Art of Environmental Photography. This exhibition of approximately 35 photographs is from the museum’s collection of works by Bob Walker, environmental photographer and tireless advocate for the preservation of Bay Area open space. Placing Walker’s work in the context of the history of photography in the environmental movement, the exhibition includes original images by such artist/activists as Ansel Adams, Phillip Hyde, Eliot Porter, the Mono Lake Committee and Robert Dawson, in addition to Walker’s correspondence, field books and recordings of some of his talks.

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