Clarence H. White and His World

Clarence H. White and His World brings this essential American artist to the attention of new generations of art enthusiasts and reclaim his place in the American art canon. The exhibition provides a fresh understanding of White's career, as shaped by the aesthetic, social, economic, technological, and political transformations of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. White's early work shares with the nascent Arts and Crafts Movement some of the most progressive values of the time, including the advocacy of hand production, closeness to nature, socialism, Japonisme, and the simple life. His move to New York in 1906 and involvement with the influential Photo-Secession group mark a fundamental shift in his production as it grew to encompass nudes made in collaboration with Alfred Stieglitz, commercial illustration for literary works, and deepening relevance to his teaching. Indeed, Clarence H. White the teacher has often overshadowed Clarence H. White the artist; this exhibition seeks to strike a new balance, demonstrating his radical techniques in both arenas. In addition to more than 100 prints, albums, and illustrated books by White himself, the exhibition will include paintings, prints, and drawings by artists who influenced or were influenced by pictorial photography, as well as photographs by White's closest friends, collaborators, and students, including Gertrude Käsebier, Alfred Stieglitz, and Alvin L. Colburn.