The Fingerprints of Giants:
Selections from the Haverford College Fine Art Photography Collection.
Edward Weston
Juniper, Tenaya Lake, 1937
Gelatin silver print
Gift and purchase, Patrons of Art and James P. Magill Fund, December 1985
The Haverford College Fine Art Photography Collection, which has recently grown to over 5,000 prints, is encyclopedic in its scope and a highly valuable resource to both students of photography and the community at large.
On the shelves of Special Collections are gathered the likes of Eugene Atget, Edward Sheriff Curtis, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Roy De Carava, William Klein, and Diane Arbus, to name just a few. These men and women are the giants who shaped and defined the photographic medium over the past 175 years. The importance of viewing their original photographic prints cannot be underestimated. Only in the presence of these works can we begin to understand the subtleties of these photographers’ decision-making processes and the deep richness and visual delights of the photographic medium.
The exhibition on view in the Alcove Gallery highlights the works of the masters of photography and examines several distinct ways of seeing that emerged in twentieth century photography. The exhibit also functions as a research aide for students in the Foundation Photography Classes at Haverford College.
The Fine Art Photography Collection has been supported through generous gifts from friends of Haverford College and the thoughtful curatorial work of William Earl Williams, the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor of Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts and Curator of Photography.
Vita Litvak ‘02, Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts
Artist’s Bio
Vita Litvak was born in Transnistria and immigrated to Philadelphia with her family in 1992. She received her BA from Haverford in 2002 with Departmental High Honors. From 2002-2006 she taught photography at Bucknell University as a Post Baccalaureate teaching assistant and later as a full time faculty at Germantown Friends School. In 2008 she received her MFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University and shortly after relocated to San Francisco where she became a resident artist at Root Division. In the past year Litvak has travelled extensively, working on several photographic projects. She spent several months living in her home country Transnistria and documenting the state of this politically turbulent and unrecognized nation. The last six months Litvak spent in Key West, Florida, where she photographed a community of people living on the water.