Awards
2008 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner, The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson
Diane Waggoner and Sarah Greenough
The Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for 2008 is given to The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, in association with Princeton University Press, 2007) by Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner. The exhibition consists of approximately 235 photographs, selected from a private collection of over 8,000, around which the catalogue authors have constructed the first account of the development of the snapshot during a period of nearly 100 years. The four essays, each covering a period of roughly two decades, are lucid and well coordinated into a single cogent narrative, offering a seamless combination of social history, history of technology, and visual culture; here, visual culture is explored in its full and literal sense: how we see and want to be seen and, with the aid of technology, how we manipulate what others see. Although ubiquitous and familiar as personal document, the snapshot acquires new meaning and significance within a larger historical and aesthetic context that promises to reframe issues in the history of photography. Our congratulations to the collector, Robert E. Jackson, to the curators Greenough and Waggoner with Sarah Kennel and Matthew S. Witkovsky, to the National Gallery of Art, and to Princeton University Press for their contributions to this new vision in this exemplary and beautifully produced catalogue.
Jury: Beth Holman, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, chair; Teresa Carbone, Brooklyn Museum; Susan Huntington, Ohio State University; David Penney, Detroit Institute of the Arts; Susan Sidlauskas, Rutgers University.
