Curator Hugh Edwards at the AIC

Hugh Edwards was one of the most influential, yet least known, photography curators in America. During his time at the Art Institute (1959-1970), he worked with remarkable enthusiasm and prescience to build the museum’s photography collection and expand its exhibition program, acquiring some three thousand works and organizing seventy-five shows. In a field that was still young, Edwards helped to shape institutional practices and the public’s understanding of photography in Chicago as well as across the country.

The site includes everything he acquired, wrote, or curated, along with great primary source documents like exhibition materials and interview snippets with artists (including now-deceased Robert Frank and Marie Cosindas). 

Contributed by Liz Siegel