Perry Collection Explored in Online Exhibitions

A well-groomed white poodle and two women sitting on a bench at an art gallery

Georgetown alumnus Jeffrey S. Perry (C'1982, Parent'2015), a member of the Georgetown University Library Board, has made extraordinary gifts of vintage photographic prints to the Library for use in teaching and research. Including more than two dozen American and European artists, the collection is primarily twentieth-century in scope. This wonderful array of historic photographs provides a rich resource for students and faculty in History, Art History, Museum Studies, and other fields of study.

In Fall 2018, Katie O'Hara, University Art Collection Curatorial Intern and Graduate Student in Art and Museum Studies, scanned over two-thirds of the photographs in the Perry Collection. Using these photos, she created an introductory exhibition as well as six themed online exhibitions that explore the way the Perry Collection interacts with the rest of Georgetown’s art collection. Check out these exhibitions below and view other online exhibitions at the Booth Family Center for Special Collections Online Exhibitions page.

I Find Letters from God: Nuns in the Perry Collection

Nun walking in a crowd

In our visual culture, nuns are a potent symbol of religion. From the Madeline children’s books (1939) to The Sound of Music (1956) and American Horror Story: Asylum (2012–2013), nuns have permeated popular culture. In the dawn of the Second Vatican Council (1962), the role of nuns in modern society was debated and differed from diocese to diocese. These debates brought a significant amount of attention to the way we see nuns in the everyday world. Photographs of nuns using the telephone feel almost like a juxtaposition of modern technology and an old world vocation. Several photographs in the Perry Collection focus on nuns prior to and just after the Second Vatican Council.

Beasts of Burden

A market scene

Photography, an art that seems to be the face of Modernism, existed before many of the inventions we consider staples of the modern age. While there were prototypes of the automobile that predate the daguerreotype, which became publicly available in 1839, large-scale manufacturing of affordable cars was not in effect until 1901. Therefore, twentieth-century photographers had the privilege of photographing the transition from beasts of burden to motorized vehicle.

Isolation: A Photo Essay

Person in front of a volcano

Before the advent of digital cameras, photography required artists to spend time in a dark room developing their photographs. These hours dedicated to perfecting their craft left much time for introspection. Moreover, with the introduction of the 35mm film cameras in the early twentieth century, photographers could take cameras to new, isolated locations without lugging more cumbersome equipment with them. This photo essay explores eight works in the Perry Collection that convey this sense of isolation.

Childhood

Children sitting in front of an apartment building with a bike

The idea of childhood in Europe and America is almost as new as photography. Childhood as a concept developed in the 17th and 18th centuries through John Locke's philosophy of the tabula rasa. This theory that the human mind is a "blank slate" at birth encouraged parents to fill the blank slate in childhood with correct notions. Locke recommended "easy pleasant books" to help children engage and develop their minds. In the Romantic era, this concept of childhood centered around children as an allegory for innocence. Before these movements, children were considered incomplete adults. Besides infant Jesus and chubby cherubs, children were seldom depicted in art. Even in the case of infant Jesus, his physique often resembles an "incomplete adult" rather than a child. In the Romantic era, John Everett Millais was critiqued for his realistic approach in portraying a pre-adolescent Christ with dirty fingernails in his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849-50). The Impressionist movement saw a rise in childhood paintings, most notably by Mary Cassatt. Parallel to Cassatt, photography as an emerging discipline embraced the new concept of childhood when it was largely absent in paintings.

Provincetown: An Art Colony

2 sailors in a car

Provincetown was the home for many major artists such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Milton Avery, Charles W. Hawthorne, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, and others. Just outside Provincetown in South Truro, Edward Hopper was a seasonal resident for many years. Provincetown and the towns of the Outer Cape were the home of an art colony that lasted over a century. Michael Cunningham, in his book Land's End: A Walk In Provincetown, stated that Provincetown "is the Morocco of America, the New Orleans of the North.” This exhibition reveals the way Provincetown has influenced photographers in the Perry Collection and to explore the art colony that drew them to Cape Cod's shores.

Art World

Andy Warhol

By the early twentieth century, photography became the means of international fame. Artists became "public property" and people were curious about their eccentricities. This originated with the Romantic era notion of "artist as genius." August Sander was one of those photographers who photographed artists. His ultimate goal was to create a photographic encyclopedia of the twentieth-century man. Many photographers in the Perry Collection photographed artists with their works or in their studios. View four photographic portraits of artists in the Perry Collection and the works they created.