A Photographer’s Collection: Gifts from Michael and Michele Marvins April 4–July 5, 2015
Lotte Jacobi, Head of a Dancer (Niura Norskaya), 1929, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, promised gift of Mike and Mickey Marvins. © 1929 The Lotte Jacobi Collection, University of New Hampshire
Philippe Halsman, Dali Atomicus, 1948, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, promised gift of Mike and Mickey Marvins. © Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos
Alma Lavenson, Self-Portrait, 1932, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, promised gift of Mike and Mickey Marvins. © Alma Lavenson Archive. All Rights Reserved.
Louis Faurer, Win, Place, and Show, 3rd Ave. El at 53rd St., New York, N.Y., 1947, gelatin silver print, printed 1981, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mike and Mickey Marvins. © Estate of Louis Faurer
Ansel Adams, Mount Williamson, the Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1944, gelatin silver print, printed c. 1973, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mike and Mickey Marvins. © 2015 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust
A Photographer’s Collection celebrates the gift and promised gift to the Museum of more than 400 photographs from the collection of Michael Marvins and his wife, Michele.
The 60 works highlighted in this presentation represent some of the varied themes in the Marvins collection, including portraits by A. A. E. Disderi, Philippe Halsman, Gertrude Käsebier, and Dorothy Norman; photographic explorations of light by Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Louis Faurer, and Mario Giacomelli; spatial perspectives, including Western landscapes by Ansel Adams and William Henry Jackson and urban views by Alvin Langdon Coburn and O. Winston Link; and images of childhood, including photographs by Robert Doisneau, Lewis Hine, Heinrich Kühn, and Josef Koudelka.
Michael Marvins is a fourth-generation, Houston-based photographer whose experience as an award-winning landscape and portrait photographer has given him an insider’s perspective on the medium’s history and technique. These insights have guided his collecting choices for three decades. The resulting collection is rich in fine prints of classic photographs from the 19th century to the present, as well as in less-familiar images that caught his eye and imagination, all of which will enhance the Museum’s already strong photographic holdings.
Catalogue
Accompanying this exhibition is an illustrated catalogue, published by the Museum and available through The MFAH Shop (713.639.7360) and the Museum's Hirsch Library (713.639.7325).
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.