Focus on Photography: Selections from the Permanent Collection

In 2008, The Grace Museum dedicated the Alice and Bill Wright Photography Gallery in response to the Wrights’ on-going gift of fine art photographs to the museum’s permanent art collection. Photographs donated by the Wrights formed the foundation of the collection that has now grown to more than 900 fine art photographs representing more than 275 photographers. Many recent additions to the collection are gifts from individual photographers and collectors.

The Grace Museum’s goal to create a premiere photography collection with emphasis on Texas photographers, augmented by outstanding photographers from around the world, has become a major focus of the permanent art collection. The Grace Museum staff is committed to the exhibition, documentation, preservation, research and interpretation of photographs, and curates exhibitions that engage our visitors and are loaned to other museums, broadening the reach and impact of the collection. The collection, as well as the Wright Photography Research Collection in The Grace Art Library, serves as a resource for photographers, students and researchers.

This exhibition features collection highlights by Ansel Adams, Henri-Cartier Bresson, William Eggleston, Fritz Henle, Elliott Erwitt, Russell Lee, Marian Post Wolcott, Sebastião Salgado, Graciela Itrubide and Keith Carter.

“This collection brings The Grace Museum into a growing continuum of committed photographic institutions throughout the state.”

-Roy Flunkinger, Curator of Photography, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 2008