Acquisition Announcement: The Todd Webb Archive

MUUS Collection is thrilled to expand its twentieth-century holdings with the acquisition of the Todd Webb archive.

Todd Webb (1905-2000) was an American photographer whose photographs of postwar city life in New York and Paris serve as visual time capsules to bygone eras. In the 1950s, Webb was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, which allowed him to photograph the pioneer trails of early America settlers, as he walked from New York City to San Francisco. An avid traveler, he also photographed in Great Britain, New Guinea, and several countries in Africa. Webb moved in the most illustrious art and photography circles of the mid-twentieth century, with his early development as a photographer shaped through encounters with figures such as Harry Callahan and Ansel Adams, and later through close relationships with Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Walker Evans, and Beaumont Newhall. Up until the 1980s, Webb actively photographed, and his portraiture of artists and friends, including Berenice Abbott, Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Lisette Model remain indelible records of his time.

Sophie Wright, Executive Director MUUS Collection: “Todd Webb was a key figure in New York’s post-Second World War photography scene. Friends with Alfred Steiglitz and his wife Georgia O’Keeffe (to whom he taught photography), he had his first solo exhibition at The Museum of the City of New York in 1946. From an earlier generation than our existing holdings, Webb’s archive deepens the story of American twentieth-century photography in the MUUS Collection.”

Webb’s archive comprises approximately 15,000 prints and 50,000 negatives, among other ephemera including his extensive journal, which offers a rich record of the photography community in postwar New York. The archive will sit alongside the work of other luminary photographers within MUUS Collection, including Rosalind Fox Solomon, Larry Fink, and Deborah Turbeville. MUUS Collection will build on the work of the Todd Webb archive to expand awareness of his photography through exhibitions and publications and will further digitize the archive to make it accessible through its online platform MUUSEUM.

In November, MUUS Collection will return as a partner to the Paris Photo fair with a presentation of works by Todd Webb and Eugene Atget, in an exhibition curated by David Campany, Creative Director of the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York.