All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
- Easter 1916, William Butler Yeats
This exhibition takes its title from a line in the poem Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats (Irish, 1865–1939). The poem—an acknowledged masterpiece of modern literature—commemorates the Easter Rising of 1916, during which Irish nationalists rebelled against British rule, resulting in hundreds of deaths and the devastation of central Dublin. Like the photographs featured in this exhibition, Yeats’ poem confronts painful historical events with sensitivity, capturing the complexity and gravity of difficult yet compelling subjects. It also suggests how artists across time have come to terms with chaos, strife, and destruction by creating works—whether photographs, paintings, prints, or sculptures—as a way of exploring and making sense of traumatic events.
The works included in A Terrible Beauty span the history of photography, from images of the American Civil War—created shortly after the medium’s invention—to photographs documenting the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, events that remain vivid in public memory. The artists who created these works negotiate the tension between artistic expression and documentary purpose while engaging with subject matter that can be disturbing, unsettling, or even offensive. Indeed, seeing these works makes us ask the question of whether a photographer can simply record events with a camera without any sort of personal or artistic bias. By extension, it questions whether there is a line that separates documentary photography from photographs which are more clearly intended to be works of art.
A Terrible Beauty draws upon the Museum of Fine Arts’ extraordinarily rich holdings of photography. It also features loans from the remarkable collection of Drs. Robert and Chitranee Drapkin, who are major donors to the Museum of Fine Arts’ holdings of photography.
Support Provided By
The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society
Featured Image: Unknown Artist, American, View of Cologne, 1945, Gelatin silver print, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew from The Ludmila Dandrew and Chitranee Drapkin Collection, 2012.28.481