Truth Beauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945 @ the Phillips

TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845–1945
(October 9, 2010–January 9, 2011)

Photographic pictorialism, an international movement, a philosophy, and a style, developed toward the end of the 19th century. The introduction of the dry-plate process, in the late 1870s, and of the Kodak camera, in 1888, made taking photographs relatively easy, and photography became widely practiced. Pictorialist photographers set themselves apart from the ranks of new hobbyist photographers by demonstrating that photography was capable of far more than literal description of a subject. Through the efforts of pictorialist organizations, publications, and exhibitions, photography came to be recognized as an art form, and the idea of the print as a carefully hand-crafted, unique object equal to a painting gained acceptance.

http://www.phillipscollection.org/exhibitions/truth_beauty/index.aspx