In this video, Phillips Collection curator Elsa Smithgall introduces special exhibition TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945, on view at The Phillips Collection Oct. 9, 2010 through Jan. 9, 2011. 
Like impressionism, which challenged the traditions of painting, pictorialism expanded the possibilities of photography beyond the literal description of a subject. Pictorialist photographers produced some of the most spectacular photographs in the history of the medium and influenced subsequent developments in modernist photography. Comprising over 120 photographs, this exhibition retraces pictorialism's beginnings with the experiments of Hill and Adamson and Julia Margaret Cameron; through its mastery by Alfred Stieglitz, Gertrude Käsebier, and Alvin Langdon Coburn; to its lasting legacy in early works by Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. 

TruthBeauty is proudly sponsored by LOCKHEED MARTIN

Organized by George Eastman House and Vancouver Art Gallery 

© The Phillips Collection, 2010