The Chicago Gift Revisited

California Museum of Photography

March 19 - October 1, 2016

The Chicago Gift Revisited examines a 1981 donation made to the California Museum of Photography by twenty-two Chicago-based photographers in honor of Charles Desmarais.  Desmarais had recently been appointed the director of the California Museum of Photography, and arrived from Chicago, where he had worked as the director for the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography (now the Museum of Contemporary Photography) at Columbia College, and served as the editor for Exposure, the Society of Photographic Education's journal.  

Featuring works by Michael Abramson, Harold Allen, Frank Barsotti, Deborah Bright, Patty Carroll, Alan Cohen, Kerry Coppin, Barbara Crane, Brian Franczyk, Jerry Gordon, Joseph Jachna, Barbara Karant, John Kimmich, Lewis Kostiner, Stephen Marc, Joan Moss, David Plowden, Barbara Jo Revelle, Robert Stiegler, Alex Sweetman, Bob Thall, and Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, "The Chicago Gift Revisited" reassembles this gift for the first time in thirty-five years and examines the role of geographic location in the artists' photographic careers.

Above image: Patty Carroll, untitled, June 1978, cibachrome print, gift of the artist