The Photographic Collection

The photographic collection at the Museum of Fine Arts now boasts more than 16,000 photographic items that span the history of the medium, including everything from mid-nineteenth century daguerreotypes by Mathew Brady and John Jabez Edwin Mayall to contemporary prints by Andres Serrano, Carrie Mae Weems, and Cindy Sherman.

Above: Edouard Denis Baldus (French, 1820-1882), PANORAMA OF PARIS, c. 1852, Albumen print, Gift of The Stuart Society in honor of Alan Du Bois, MFA Assistant Director,  1985.40

Notable photographers in the collection

  • Berenice Abbott
  • Ansel Adams
  • Max Alpert
  • Diane Arbus
  • Eugène Atget
  • Richard Avedon
  • Platt D. Babbitt
  • Édouard Baldus
  • Lewis Baltz
  • Antonio Beato
  • Ilse Bing
  • Félix Bonfils
  • Margaret Bourke-White
  • Matthew Brady
  • Brassaï
  • Manuel Àlvarez Bravo
  • Julia Margaret Cameron
  • Robert Capa
  • Étienne Carjat
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson
  • Lucien Clergue
  • Alvin Langdon Coburn
  • Edward S. Curtis
  • F. Holland Day
  • Robert Doisneau
  • George Dureau
  • Jessica Eaton
  • Harold Edgerton
  • Alfred Eisenstaedt
  • Elliot Erwitt
  • Walker Evans
  • George Henry Fox
  • Robert Frank
  • Lee Friedlander
  • Lewis Hine
  • Gertrude Käsebier
  • André Kertész
  • Dorothea Lange
  • Jacques Henri Lartigue
  • O. Winston Link
  • Herbert List
  • Man Ray
  • Sally Mann
  • Robert Mapplethorpe
  • John Jabez Edwin Mayall
  • Ralph Eugene Meatyard
  • Arno Rafael Minkkinen
  • László Moholy-Nagy
  • Barbara Morgan
  • Eadweard Muybridge
  • Nadar
  • Barbara Norfleet
  • Timothy O’Sullivan
  • Irving Penn
  • Len Prince
  • Robert Rauschenberg
  • Oscar Gustave Rejlander
  • Willy Ronis
  • August Sander
  • Napoleon Sarony
  • Pascal Sébah
  • Andres Serrano
  • Rebecca Sexton Larson
  • Ben Shahn
  • Cindy Sherman
  • Stephen Shore
  • Lorna Simpson
  • Aaron Siskind
  • Eugene Smith
  • Herb Snitzer
  • Edward Steichen
  • Alfred Stieglitz
  • Paul Strand
  • Isaiah West Taber
  • William Henry Fox Talbot
  • Philip Trager
  • Jerry Uelsmann
  • David Vestal
  • Todd Webb
  • Weegee
  • Carrie Mae Weems
  • William Wegman
  • Edward Weston
  • Minor White
  • Gary Winogrand