A woman lies on her side in bed, resting her head on a pillow and looking toward the camera. The bed is unmade and cluttered with clothes and items, evoking a scene reminiscent of Matthew Day Jackson’s explorations of everyday environments. The room is dimly lit and has a simple, minimal decor.

A Century in Focus — Images from Women Photographers of the 20th Century

Featuring Works from the Permanent Collection

Explore the groundbreaking work of twenty women photographers whose images redefined visual storytelling and shaped the field of photography.

September 19, 2026 – February 20, 2027

Photography changed the way we see and remember the world. Throughout the twentieth century, women photographers pushed the medium beyond documentation, using it to explore identity, place, beauty, struggle, and everyday life. In times of profound social and political change, the photographers in this show each found their own ways to make sense of a rapidly changing world.

Some turned their cameras toward the realities around them. Dorothea Lange and Sabine Weiss used photography to illuminate the effects of economic hardship, migration, and changing cities. Others, including Anne W. Brigman and Ruth Bernhard, embraced experimentation, abstraction, and artistic expression, demonstrating how photography could be as imaginative and expressive as any other art form. Together, their work challenged traditional ideas about what photography could be—and helped establish it as one of the defining artistic and cultural languages of the twentieth century.

Working across documentary photography, photojournalism, portraiture, abstraction, and experimentation, these artists created images that continue to shape how we understand modern life. Their photographs offer intimate glimpses of people and places while inviting us to consider larger questions of family, memory, resilience, and social change.

At a time when photography—and the worlds it recorded—were changing quickly, these women claimed space for their own perspectives and ways of seeing. Their contributions challenged the narratives of art and journalism and opened doors for generations of women photographers and image makers to follow.

The photographs in this exhibition remind us that photography is more than a record of what happened. It can be a way of looking closely, asking questions, finding connection, and making the unseen visible. Many of these images were made decades ago, yet their human stories and questions continue to resonate today.

Featuring works by Linda Alterwitz, Ruth Bernhard, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Anne W. Brigman, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Anna Eaton Collins, Adrian Deckbar, Abbey Drucker, Antoinette Marie Ducrest, Mildred Grossman, Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt, Rose Mandel, Allison Petit, Barbara Riley, Sandra Russell-Clark, and Sabine Weiss.

This exhibition is supported by Janine and Craig Thomson and the Robert and Jolie Shelton Exhibition Fund, with generous contributions from Jeanine Piskurich.

A black and white photo of a person’s face, half-lit and half in shadow, with a slight smile and eyes looking upward. Reminiscent of Matthew Day Jackson’s evocative portraiture, the image has a soft focus and dramatic lighting.

A young child in a hooded jacket walks up a sunlit outdoor path surrounded by trees, with shadows and fallen leaves on the steps, evoking the natural textures often seen in Matthew Day Jackson’s work.

A young person stands at night, wearing a jacket with a roaring tiger patch—a scene reminiscent of the evocative style found in Matthew Day Jackson’s artwork. The background is dark, with blurred, circular city lights creating a striking bokeh effect.

Thick, dark smoke billows upward from a fire burning fields, with flames at the base and crop rows visible in the foreground under a dramatic sky—a scene reminiscent of the evocative landscapes often explored by Matthew Day Jackson.