Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019 - 64

Vassar News

The Art Center Exhibition Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary
of Advisory Council for Photography

James K. Kloppenburg '77 has loved the art
and craft of photography since before he
graduated from Vassar, and he's been an
avid collector for more than 30 years. For the
past decade, as chair of the Vassar College
Advisory Council for Photography, he has
been a guiding force behind a team of other
avid photography lovers and collectors who
have enhanced the quality and size of the
collection at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art
Center. The council consists of a group of
about 20 Vassar alums and other collectors
and aficionados who have been helping
the Art Center make some significant
acquisitions since it was formed in 1999.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
recently marked the 20th anniversary of the
group's founding by mounting the exhibition
Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. The exhibition,
curated by Mary-Kay Lombino, the museum's
Emily Hargroves Fisher '57 and Richard B.
Fisher Curator and Assistant Director for
Strategic Planning, was one of its largest
exhibitions dedicated entirely to photography.

FA L L / W I N T E R 2 0 1 9

Above: Stephen Shore, Patroon Farm, Kripplebush,
NY, 1985. C-print. Top: Danny Lyon, From Dayton to
Columbus, Ohio, from The Bikeriders series, 1966.
Gelatin silver print.

Shape of Light included 125 works on view
in five galleries, showcasing "defining
photographs that set our collection apart
from others," according to Lombino.
Represented were photographers Margaret
Bourke-White, Richard Avedon, Gordon
Parks, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan,
Larry Fink, Cindy Sherman, Katy Grannan,

-Larry Hertz

Support for the exhibition was provided by the
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Charina
Foundation, and the Hoene Hoy Photography
Endowment Fund, with additional gifts from
Michael and Joyce ('61) Axelrod, James K. Kloppenburg '77, Elizabeth Cabot Lyman '64, and Bryna
Sweedler '61.

Images courtesy of FLLAC

Shape of Light

and Tina Barney. Works included Polaroids,
postcards, and snapshots from family albums,
in addition to landscapes, still lifes, portraits,
and some abstract works that Lombino says
examine the "shape of light and shadows."
The exhibition even included a recently
acquired whole-plate daguerreotype made
around 1850, about a decade after the
daguerreotype was invented.
Lombino says the Art Center's photography collection has grown enormously
since the photography council was formed.
Of the more than 20,000 works in
FLLAC's collection, about 4,500 are photographs-a few of them older than the college
itself. The advisory council enables the
museum to continue acquiring photographs
for its collection through annual dues and
other donations by its members. It meets
twice a year. In the spring, members gather
at the Art Center, where they confer with
curators to decide how to use the money
received from dues to acquire one or more
works for the Art Center's collection. The
group also convenes in the fall, often in
New York City, to gather information about
the market for photographs and to discuss
possible future purchases. "Sometimes, one
or more artists will stop in to discuss their
work," says Kloppenburg.
Several members-including Kloppenburg himself-have donated photographs to
the collection over the years and this year
in honor of the 20th anniversary.
Members give back in other ways, too.
Thanks to the generosity of Anne Hoy '63,
Vassar students now have the opportunity
to explore the world of photography in a
more formal way. Hoy has provided the
funding for a course on the history of
photography taught annually by Adjunct
Assistant Professor of Art Emily Voelker.

Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Fall/Winter 2019