Exhibitions

Flowers, Fruit, Books, Bones: Still Life from the Center forCreative Photography features over sixty still life photographs from the Center’s collection. While many of the works were conceived for a range of purposes outside of fine art, from advertising images to teaching aids, all make full use ofphotography’s ability to render rich detail. Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to slow down and relish the pleasure of close looking.  To deepen the experience of visual contemplation, the photographs are paired with short pieces of text – both poetry and prose – that invite visitors into a space of rumination.

The Center will continue its popular presentation of materials from our archive and fine print vaults for our summer visitors.  A selection of rarely seen archival materials and artworks chosen by the Center’s staff will be housed in flat-file drawers in the Center’s gallery. This presentation of items from the vault will be complemented by a selection of artworks acquired by the Center in the last 18 months, demonstrating the variety and impact of the newest photographs to enrich the Center’s valuable research collection.

Commemorating the CCP's fortieth year with a selection of distinctive objects from its collection, this exhibition will bring together photographs and their related stories, including those told by curators, archivists, and other key figures from the Center's past and present. 

Featuring the work of Lucas Blalock, Owen Kydd, and John Lehr, this exhibition, whose title derives from a 1923 poem by William Carlos Williams, assumes the form of a running dialogue between photographic images—past and present—that take as their subject the accumulated byproducts of an American way of life.

The evolution of photography has been inextricably bound up with the field of astronomy. Since photography’s earliest days, it has been used as a tool to advance astronomical observation and thought, yielding some of the most curious and compelling images in the medium’s history. Featuring works by a diversity of makers ranging from pioneering scientists to artists and amateurs, this exhibition surveys mankind’s ongoing efforts to chart and understand an expanding universe.

Although many photographers experiment with the platinum process, few have explored the medium as extensively as Lois Conner, Scott Davis, Kenro Izu and Andrea Modica. Each of these four photographers have produced extensive bodies of work in platinum, exploiting the particular characteristics of the materials to produce innovative and compelling prints.

Presenting platinum photographs from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography spanning from 1873 to the present, including works by Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, William E. Macnaughtan, Peter Henry Emerson, Dick Arentz and more. 

Earlier this year, Phoenix Art Museum called on photographers to send examples of their self-published photobooks. The jury, made up of seven industry professionals, reviewed the hundreds of submissions that came in.  This exhibition represents the books they chose as the best examples of the wide range of photobooks being produced today. The books are presented in the gallery on tables for easy viewing. We encourage you to handle them gently and leave them in good condition for other visitors.

Our current exhibition presents more than 100 works from the private collection of Douglas Nielsen, choreographer and professor at the University of Arizona School of Dance. Featuring photographs and photo-based prints by artists as diverse as Diane Arbus, John Baldessari, Jo Ann Callis, Jimmy DeSana, Elliott Erwitt, Bruce Nauman, and Cindy Sherman, the exhibition’s unique installation highlights the dramatic and physical tension that can result when a figure stands before the camera’s lens. 

The Center for Creative Photography is celebrating Charles Harbutt’s photographic work, and its relationship to the printed page. The exhibition will feature a complete set of prints from Harbutt’s newest publication, Departures and Arrivals; a short video in which Harbutt and Joan Liftin describe the book’s creative process; work prints from Harbutt’s 1959 trip to Cuba; and a slide show of over 150 photographs made on assignment, along with related clippings and tear sheets demonstrating Harbutt’s ability to work both sides of the divide between art and commerce to arrive at an original vision.

Anticipating Digital features the prescient work of Center for Creative Photography archive artist Todd Walker (1917-1998). The exhibition examines three decades of Walker’s work, highlighting his early use of computers to digitize images, and features examples of Walker’s use of alternate printing methods including offset lithos, silkscreens, Collotypes, self-published artist books and portfolios.

The exhibition will open on Friday, March 29 from 4:30 to 5:30pm for a special preview before the lecture "Lola Alvarez Bravo, Rethinking the Archive."

Lola Alvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era sheds new light on one of Mexico’s most important photographers. Featuring both iconic and lesser-known images by Lola Alvarez Bravo, as well as photographs by her former husband Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and by her students, this presentation will inspire fresh insights into this fascinating photographer’s rich contributions to modern art.

In 1957, W. Eugene Smith, a former photographer at Life magazine, moved into a dilapidated, five-story loft building in New York City. It was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz as well as countless fascinating, underground characters. The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965 is an exhibition of photographs and audio recordings of an extraordinary chapter in American jazz history and the climate in which it occurred.

Celebrating the Arizona Centennial, a selection of diverse photographs created in the state during the twentieth century are on display. In addition to iconic views of iconic sites by photographic masters, this presentation embraces the unexpected, and shows the rich breadth and scope of the Center’s fine print collection. 

The archive of Robert Heinecken resides at the Center for Creative Photography and this is the first major exhibition of his work to be shown at the Center.