Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895–1925

This exhibition is the first in over forty years to survey the work of Clarence H. White (United States, 1871–1925), a founding member of the Photo-Secession, a gifted photographer known for his beautiful scenes of quiet domesticity and outdoor idylls, and a major teacher and mentor. It will survey White’s career from its beginnings in 1895 in Newark, Ohio, to his death in Mexico in 1925.

Clarence H. White and His World will bring this essential American artist to the attention of new generations of art enthusiasts and reclaim his place in the American art canon. The exhibition will provide a fresh understanding of White’s career, as shaped by the aesthetic, social, economic, technological, and political transformations of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. White’s early work shares with the nascent Arts and Crafts Movement some of the most progressive values of the time, including the advocacy of hand production, closeness to nature, socialism, Japonisme, and the simple life. His move to New York in 1906 and involvement with the influential Photo-Secession group mark a fundamental shift in his production as it grew to encompass nudes made in collaboration with Alfred Stieglitz, commercial illustration for literary works, and deepening relevance to his teaching. Indeed, Clarence H. White the teacher has often overshadowed Clarence H. White the artist; this exhibition seeks to strike a new balance, demonstrating his radical techniques in both arenas. In addition to more than 100 prints, albums, and illustrated books by White himself, the exhibition will include paintings, prints, and drawings by artists who influenced or were influenced by pictorial photography, as well as photographs by White’s closest friends, collaborators, and students, including Gertrude Käsebier, Alfred Stieglitz, and Alvin L. Colburn.

Opening events:
6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 20: Director’s Circle and Contemporaries Council Evening Preview and Opening Reception
7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Thursday, June 21: Business Partners Mornings at the Museum
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, June 21: Members Open House
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 21: Members Evening Reception
10 a.m. Friday, June 22: Open to the public

Organized by the Princeton University Art Museum.
This exhibition has been made possible, in part, with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation and Isabelle and Scott Black.
Funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Corporate sponsorship provided by Sabre Yachts and Back Cove Yachts.