Best Acquisition
The Hallmark Photographic Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art's 11-foot-wide Gajin Fujita painting, "Ride or Die": gorgeous. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's series of Enrique Chagoya prints, "Return to Goya's Caprichos": terribly clever. But the city's best acquisition over the past year has to be the 6,500-piece Hallmark Photographic Collection, slated to help fill the Bloch Building when the Nelson's addition opens in 2007. Keith Davis, who spent 25 years assembling the works, organized a 31-piece teaser earlier this year that included photographs by Chuck Close, Irving Penn and Man Ray. The show included two pieces from an extensive daguerreotype collection; one of 320 Harry Callahan holdings; and women's work, too: Carrie Mae Weems, Ilse Bing, Barbara Morgan. So, if you do the math, that mini-exhibit included less than half of 1 percent of the entire collection. Even if, say, three-fourths of Hallmark's gift is total crap, we're still looking at 1,625 beautiful new pictures. Pretty good odds, if you ask us.
Comments (0)