Newhall, Nancy Wynne

Biographical / Historical Note

Beaumont Newhall is perhaps the first champion of the study of photography as art, and of its history. He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1908 and graduated from Harvard University in 1932. After an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newhall became the Librarian at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1937, at the request of Director Alfred Barr, Newhall organized the museum's first exhibition of photographs. His History of Photography, published for the exhibition, introduced formal criteria for judging photography as a fine art. Revised five times and translated into several languages, it remains a widely read textbook on the history of photography.

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