Ourselves Through the Lens

By training the camera on individual personalities and circumstances, photographers from James Van Der Zee to Graciela Iturbide and Luis Gonzalez Palma have sought to capture the emotional lives of others. This exhibition examines our very human impulse to look, and the ways photography directs such visual encounters. Sometimes documentary, sometimes metaphorical, the 44 images selected for this exhibition include gifts to the Crocker’s permanent collection. Among the many photographic approaches documented in this exhibition are prints by Arnold Genthe, Leonard Freed, Edward Steichen, Flor Garduno, Raul Canibano, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Shelby Lee Adams, Sebastião Selgado, and Jennifer Karady. All are provocative and questioning of whether truth or artifice lies behind the portrayal.