Speaker Series: “Long Shot or Up Close: Collecting Photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art”

With over 8,200 photographic prints, books, and videos, the photography department is the second-largest collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is surprising, given that the first photograph did not enter the art collection until 1935; the first purchase of a photograph did not occur until 1963; and a department dedicated to the medium was not established until 1996. Learn why this now popular medium got such a slow start and what forces and individuals led to its rapid growth starting in the 1980s in this exploration of the history of collecting photography at the CMA. With speaker Barbara Tannenbaum at the Cleveland Museum of Art.