Your ticket to A Long Arc will also grant you admission to American, born Hungary.
Take an epic journey through the American South from 1845 to today. In A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845, presented at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, encounter the everyday lives and ordinary places captured in evocative photos that contemplate the region’s central role in shaping American history and identity and its critical impact on the development of photography. This is the first major exhibition in more than 25 years to explore the full history of photography in and about the South.
A Long Arc explores the American South’s distinct, evolving, and contradictory character through an examination of photography and how photographers working in the region have reckoned with the South’s fraught history and posed urgent questions about American identity. Organized chronologically, the exhibition traces the South’s shifting identity in more than two hundred photographs made over more than 175 years.
The exhibition’s individual sections delve into the themes of photography before, during, and after the Civil War; documentary photography of the 1930s and ’40s; images of a post–World War II South in economic, racial, and psychic dissonance with the nation; photography as catalyst for change during the civil rights movement; reflective narrative photography of the late 20th century; and contemporary photography examining social, environmental, and economic issues.
A Long Arc presents a richly layered archive that captures the region’s beauty and complexity. Offering a full visual accounting of the South’s role in shaping American history, identity and culture, the exhibition includes photographs by Alexander Gardner, George Barnard, P.H. Polk, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, Robert Frank, Clarence John Laughlin, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon, Doris Derby, Ernest Withers, William Eggleston, William Christenberry, Baldwin Lee, Sally Mann, Carrie Mae Weems, Susan Worsham, Carolyn Drake, Sheila Pree-Bright, RaMell Ross, and others.
The exhibition is co-curated by Sarah Kennel, PhD, VMFA’s Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center, with Gregory J. Harris, The Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Exhibition Highlights
The March from Selma, 1965, Matt Herron (American, 1931–2020), gelatin silver print, 7 1/2 x 13 11/16 in. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Gift of Gloria and Paul Sternberg, 1999.154.5 © Matt Herron
Domestic workers waiting for the bus, Atlanta, Georgia, April, 1983, Joel Sternfeld (American, born 1944), dye coupler print, 48 x 58 1/2 in. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Gift of Dr. Judy and Kevin Wolman, 2017.466 © Joel Sternfeld
Marine, Hotel Near Airport, Richmond, Virginia, 2009, Susan Worsham (American, born 1969), pigmented inkjet print, 33 x 41 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund, 2017.117 © Susan Worsham
Rose Grower, 2021, José Ibarra Rizo (American, born Mexico, 1992), inkjet print, 40 x 32 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund, 2023.1343 © José Ibarra Rizo
Florida. Tomoka River. The King’s Ferry, 1898, William Henry Jackson (American, 1843–1942), chromolithograph, 7 x 9 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of an Anonymous Donor, 2014.159
2nd Regiment, United States Colored Light Artillery, Battery A: Ram, ca. 1864, Unidentified Photographer, albumen silver print, 5 5/16 x 7 1/4 in. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Purchased with funds from the Lucinda Weil Bunnen Fund and the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family, 2021.274-277
Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama, 1936, Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975), gelatin silver print, 9 5/8 x 7 7/8 in. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Gift of Norman Selby (PA 1970) and Melissa G. Vail, 2020.31
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment
Julia Louise Reynolds Fund
Davenport Family Foundation
Elisabeth Shelton Gottwald Fund
Mr. and Mrs. Charles N. Whitaker
Carol Ann Bischoff and Mike Regan
Nancy and Wayne Chasen
Community Foundation for a greater Richmond
Anne and Gus Edwards
Tibby and David Ford
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Garner, Jr.
Dr. and Mrs. William V. Garner
Bertie Heiner
Richard S. Reynolds Foundation
Virginia Sargeant Reynolds Foundation
Michael Schewel and Priscilla Burbank
Mary and Don Shockey
YouDecide
Anne Battle and Leonard Slater
Cindi Cobbs and Jim Ludwig
Kate Neale Cooper and Matt Cooper
Birch Douglass
Gray-Nyerges Charitable Fund
Hamilton Beach Brands, Inc.
Adrianne Joseph
James W. Klaus
Alexandria Rogers McGrath
Teri Craig Miles
Peachtree House Foundation
Tom Williamson and Janet Brown
An Anonymous Donor
Edie and Bob Cabaniss | Ann B. Carpenter in memory of Richard H. Carpenter, M.D. | Page and John Corey | Drs. Ronald A. and Betty Neal Crutcher | Dana Foundation, Inc. | Christopher English and Meda Lane | Eucharia “Ukay” and Richard Jackson, M.D. | Tammy and Brian Jackson | Arnel Manalo | Nancy and Tom McCandlish | John McGurl and Michelle Gluck | Dr. and Mrs. Kent Minichiello | Michelle and John Nestler | Candace H. Osdene | Dr. and Mrs. Carl Patow | Celia Rafalko and Rick Sample* | Ellen Ray, Main Street Law Offices | Reynolds Gallery | Anne Carter Robins and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation Exhibition Endowment | Agustin E. Rodriguez and Coleen Butler Rodriguez | Andrea Wassmer | Deborah and Mark Wlaz | An Anonymous Donor
Media Sponsor
Marketing support is provided by the Charles G. Thalhimer Fund. This list reflects sponsors as of September 24, 2024.
TOP OF PAGE iHome, 2012, RaMell Ross (American, born 1982), inkjet print, 36 x 46 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2024.17 © RaMell Ross