Join curator Elizabeth Siegel for her thoughts and assessment on how a photograph becomes an icon. Photography first received recognition as a vibrant and viable art form in the 20th century. As museum curators, photographic historians, and editors assessed the rich history of the medium, certain images came forward as definitional to the history of photographic achievement, and museums and publications promoted them with new authority. A new canon emerged that held an outside influence on photographers and admirers ever since. Siegel will discuss key works by acclaimed photographers Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and Garry Winogrand, among others.

Siegel is Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has curated focused exhibitions on photographers including Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Abelardo Morell, and Alfred Stieglitz.

Galleries will be open prior to the talk.

About the Pete Armstrong Photography Lecture Series
This program is the second in the newly launched Edward “Pete” Armstrong Lecture Series.

Edward “Pete” Armstrong (1921-2009) was a respected business and civic leader and talented photographer. A photographic officer during WWII, he pursued his passion for photography throughout his life. His wife, Mickey Armstrong, and family, honor Pete and his lifelong love of photography through endowed support for ongoing talks on photography topics at the Wichita Art Museum.