Depth of Field: Selections from the Bill Rhoades Collection of Northwest Photography

January 4 – April 23, 2022

Hallie Ford Museum of Art
700 State St
Salem, OR 97301
https://willamette.edu/arts/hfma/index.html

For the past twenty-four years, collector Bill Rhoades of Madras, Oregon, has donated hundreds of examples of Northwest art to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, and Native American art. In recent years, Rhoades has turned his attention almost exclusively to photography. Organized by curator Jonathan Bucci in collaboration with Rhoades, the exhibition presents a range of Northwest photographs donated to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art by the collector.

The photography focus within the museum’s Bill Rhoades Collection has grown extensively in recent years and explores the history of Northwest Photography through some of the most significant regional photographers and photo groups of the past one hundred years. The early art photography movement had important contributors in the Pacific Northwest, including Edward Curtis and Imogen Cunningham in Washington, both represented in this exhibition, and Myra Wiggins and Lily White in Oregon. The exhibition also includes work by photographers from the Farm Security Administration (a 1930s WPA-era federal project that included Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Minor White, among others), the Advanced Interim Workshop (a Portland based group led by Minor White that began in 1959), Blue Sky Gallery (founded in 1975 as a venue for the newest ideas in contemporary photography), and the Portland Photographic Workshop (a group formed in 1982 by Stu Levy and Stewart Harvey to improve craft and aesthetics). In addition to photographers who fit into this historical framework, the collection holds work by other influential photographers such as Mary Randlett, Michael Kenna, and Robert Adams, as well as a range of contemporary photographers from the Northwest.

The following photographers’ work is included in the show:
• Robert Adams
• Max Allara
• Ray Atkeson
• Mick Briscoe
• Marsha Burns
• Jeffrey Conley
• Imogen Cunningham
• Edward Curtis
• Peter de Lory
• Roger Dorband
• William Galen
• Joan Gentry
• Eddie Greenly
• Stewart Harvey
• Craig Hickman
• Cherie Hiser
• Aaron Johanson
• Edis Jurcys
• Joni Kabana
• Ann Kendellen
• Michael Kenna
• Don Kirby
• Marian Wood Kolisch
• Dorothea Lange Russell Lee
• Stu Levy
• Fritz Liedtke
• Jim Lommasson
• Robert B. Miller
• Al Monner
• Loren Nelson
• Mary Randlett
• Chris Rauschenberg
• Ron Reeder
• Bill Rhoades
• Gerald Robinson
• Arnold Rustin
• Terry Thompson
• Terry Toedtemeier
• Brett Weston
• Minor White
• Shedrich Williams
• John Wimberley
• Huntington Witherill

As a special feature, the exhibition will be accompanied by a brochure with an essay on Rhoades and the collection by professor emeritus of art history Roger Hull.
For more information, visit the museum’s website: https://willamette.edu/arts/hfma/exhibitions/library/2021-22/depth-of-field.html