Photography

Our collection spans the entire history of the medium, with a focus on 19th-century American and European photography.

Highlights

Self-Portrait of Josiah Johnson Hawes in a Fanciful Alpine Setting, ca. 1850

Albert Sands Southworth
Untitled [first image from the 605 O'Farrell Street section of the album Home (605 O'Farrell Street, San Francisco and Heartsease, Menlo Park)], 1880

Eadweard Muybridge
Salt Lake City and the Tabernacle, Utah, 1873–1874

Carleton E. Watkins
Magnolia Blossom, 1925 (printed 1930)

Imogen Cunningham
Lewis Powell (Alias Payne), Conspirator, Seated and Manacled, April, 1865, from the book, The Album of the Lincoln Conspiracy (Washington: Alexander Gardner, 1866), 1865

Alexander Gardner
Sir Walter Scott's Monument, Edinburgh, proof for pl. 2 of the book Sun Pictures in Scotland (published 1845), 1844

William Henry Fox Talbot
Aspidium Achrosticoides (America), ca. 1850

Anna Atkins
Seated Odalisque, 1858

Roger Fenton
Hardinge Hay Cameron, 1864

Julia Margaret Cameron

Next page

Current page: 1 of 7

Current page: of 7 pages

Stories

Carrie Mae Weems stands in the Court of Honor in a black dress facing the entrance to the museum and away from the lens

Carrie Mae Weems stands in the Court of Honor in a black dress facing the entrance to the museum and away from the lens

Carrie Mae Weems Enters the Legion of Honor

A new acquisition examines who is included in the museum space.

By Sally Martin Katz, associate curator of photography

About the photography collection

Keep exploring