In 2010, VMFA began acquiring photographs representing key moments in the Civil Rights era ranging from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s. The VMFA’s collection includes works by such notable artists as James Karales, Gordon Parks, Louis Draper, and Steven Shames, among others. Featured icons depicted in these acquired photographs include Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Stokely Carmichael.

Photography was first introduced to the United States in the early 1840s. Daguerreian photography made portraiture available to an increasing number of Americans. Later, intrepid photographers explored the American West with large format cameras, producing sweeping landscape vistas. At the turn of the twentieth century, the affordability of materials and a greater simplicity of process allowed even more artists to experiment with both aestheticized and sharply focused, straight photography.

Since the 1980s, many contemporary artists have used photography to explore issues of gender, race, identity, and power. Some artists have also combined and manipulated traditional and modern techniques to investigate concepts of time and perception, further pushing the boundaries of photographic representation.