Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1911 (Heft 33))

THE EXHIBITION AT BUFFALO

WHILE the recent International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography
at the Albright Art Gallery was not the first of its kind, it proved to
be, so far as my experience enables me to judge, the most distin-
guished. In point of representation it was the most comprehensive; high-
est in its average of quality and far and away the best displayed. More-
over, it not only presented a historical survey, beginning with the work of
D. O. Hill in the 40’s, but also brought the subject up to the actual
present. It was at once a retrospect and a panorama of existing conditions.
To one who, like myself, has watched the development of pictorial pho-
tography closely for over twelve years, and shared some of the knocks which
have fallen on those who ventured to believe in it as a medium of artistic
expression, the exhibition was not so much a surprise as a satisfaction. And
it was so, not because it corroborated one’s own convictions, which have
long been grounded too firmly even to be disturbed by the shortcomings of
some of the experiments in photography, but because it was calculated to
bring assurance to any mind not hopelessly biased in the opposite direction,
that the pictorial capabilities of the medium had been established beyond
dispute. The denial of this fact has already been petering out and the late
exhibition gave it a final quietus. To all future objectors who may seek to
draw one into controversy, the first question should be: “Did you see the
Buffalo show?” If the answer is “No,” one can retort: “That is a pity, for
then you would have been in a better position to know what you are talking
about. As it is, you are rather in the state of a man who should argue dogmat-
ically about Venetian painting without ever having been to Venice.” No
doubt my friend’s rejoinder would be that he has seen plenty of photographs
and also, maybe, has attended divers photographic salons. And so have I,
for which very reason I should be obdurate. Of course he would not under-
stand me because—he had not been to Buffalo.
This implies, among other things, that the conditions under which the
prints were displayed had a great deal to do with the impression received.
This is true. Sometimes one has seen the exhibits hung in double-deck
arrangement to economize space at the expense of the prints; or they have
been displayed on a single line in a few galleries of some big building, forming
only an incident in the total impression. But the Albright Art Gallery is
comparatively small, and almost its entire range of picture galleries was
given over to the photographic exhibition. One received a suggestion that
the exhibition represented not an incident, but for the time being the purpose
of the building’s existence. It was increased by the apparent harmony of
scale between the prints and their environment, largely due to the excellence
of the hanging which created the illusion of an organic unity. In fact the
exhibition was so incorporated into its surroundings that it gained from and
added to their dignity, and became a detailed expression of their choiceness.
I have never seen an arrangement more generally persuasive and at the same
time better calculated to emphasize the individuality of the component parts.