As school gets back into full swing, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s collection just added a new reason to visit for students and art scholars alike. The Carter recently announced the acquisition of more than 240 photographs and works on paper bequeathed through Finis Welch who passed away last year.
The collection and gift, amassed by the economist and entrepreneur, includes work by Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston and more, which contribute to the Carter’s early photographic modernism collection.
Works on paper by Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Lewis Rubenstein, and Rufino Tamayo add dimension, while three works by abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell are the first prints by the artist to enter the American art museum’s holdings.
The range of the bequest is astounding, which includes 10 rare vintage works by Paul Outbridge, an early pioneer of color photography and a unique 10-print set of Aaron Siskind’s series Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation. Works by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and William Eggleston are also among the bequest. Evans’ work depicts some of the most quintessential photographs of his practice. Conceptual works by Marco Breuer, Chris McCaw, and Alison Rossiter are the first works by these artists to enter the Carter’s collection. Works by Edward Burtynsky, Mitch Epstein, and Richard Misrach expand the Carter’s foremost landscape photography collection.
The Carter will highlight a selection of these new acquisitions next year in the exhibition Beauty and Life: The Finis Welch Collection, opening February 20, 2022. Offering nearly 50 photographs from the Welch Collection, the exhibition will showcase a range of artists and perspectives.
Amon Carter’s executive director Andrew J. Walker says the acquisitions allows the museum to tell a richer and more complete story of photography and works on paper. He also noted, “Finis spent the past decade acquiring key works with the Carter in mind for their eventual home. We are grateful for his generosity and look forward to spotlighting some of these compelling new additions to our collection in our galleries early next year.”
Welch’s collection elicit his interests as an art collector, and emphasizes his personal passions and curiosities, such as Depression-era photography that highlighted the quotidian details of human life. The depth of the collection augments the museum’s expanding contribution to scholarship, which houses over 45,000 photographic prints and almost a quarter million objects, cementing the already highly regarded photography repositories.