Historically, social and cultural conventions often limited a woman’s ability to venture out and photograph the landscape in the same manner as men. Thanks to strides in women’s rights and expanding interest in photography, from the late 1800s onward, women increasingly took their cameras out into the world to make photographs of the natural and built environment.
The contemporary photographers in this gallery have brought their own unique perspective to a familiar subject in the history of photography. Some have adopted a straight, descriptive approach to their subjects, while others conjure imagined environments. Ranging from coolly detached to whimsical to disorienting, these photographs celebrate and sometimes question relationships of humans to their surroundings.
As we have traveled and photographed, it has become our view that no part of the earth’s surface is unaltered by human activity.
Bank of America Collection
© Lynn Davis
Lynn Davis (American, born 1944)
Iceberg #16, Disko Bay, Greenland
1986
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Lynn Davis
Davis’s depictions of architectural and natural monuments underscore themes of impermanence and the inevitability of change. Her attention to form is clear in each photograph. As she explains, “It’s all about the balance and the positive-negative space.”
Artwork Description:
Color photograph taken from high above the city featuring the vibrant green rooftop garden atop City Hall.
Terry Evans (American, born 1944)
Mayor’s Rooftop Garden, City Hall, Chicago
2003
Inkjet print
Bank of America Collection
© Terry Evans
Evans makes aerial photographs that convey rarely seen points of view. Commissioned by a conservancy organization and a business group, Evans photographed the landscapes of Chicago and its surrounding region, with subjects ranging from sand dunes to steel mills.
Artwork Description:
Four black and white photographs arranged in a two-by-two grid featuring industrial structures set against clear skies.
Clockwise from top left:
Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931–2007; 1934–2015)
Refinery, Thionville, Lorraine, France
1959-75
Pit Head, Joliett, Pennsylvania, USA
about 1974
Gas Holder, London-Finchley, England
1966
Water Tower, Recklinghausen, Ruhr District
1966
Gelatin silver prints
Bank of America Collection
© Estate of Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher
This husband-and-wife team produced a vast series of photographs focused on European and American industrial structures. Their unemotional, matter-of-fact style relied on a large-format camera whose big negatives ensured maximum detail and clarity. They went to great lengths to avoid expressive elements. Hilla recalled patiently awaiting “the right weather conditions, in the right season, without leafy trees and bushes and branches getting in the way.”
Bank of America Collection
© Virginia Beahan
Virginia Beahan (American, born 1946)
Laura McPhee (American, born 1958)
The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Water Pumping Station, Þorbjörn, Iceland
1988
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Virginia Beahan
Beahan and McPhee reject landscape photography conventions that depict nature either as pristine or as irrevocably damaged. They travel the world to represent nuanced interactions with the environment. Their humor surfaces in works like this one, where people appear to be swimming carelessly near a power plant. In fact, the structure is benign, producing both geothermal energy and the “lake” of warm, nontoxic runoff.
Bank of America Collection
© Alejandra Laviada
Left to right:
Alejandra Laviada (Mexican, born 1980)
Tricolor, from the series Forest Interventions
Marrakesh, from the series Forest Interventions
2012–13
Pigment prints
Bank of America Collection
© Alejandra Laviada
Laviada contemplates the ephemeral nature of things through painting, sculpture, installation, and photography. These massive concrete cylinders—termed “modern ruins” by the artist—are remnants of a construction project near Mexico City. Her applications of bright paint on the concrete give them prominence within the landscape. Laviada intends to revisit the site periodically to document how the structures change and deteriorate.
Bank of America Collection
© Neeta Madahar
Neeta Madahar (British, born 1966)
Sustenance 104
2003
Inkjet print
Bank of America Collection
© Neeta Madahar
For her Sustenance series, Madahar placed bird feeders next to her balcony and photographed her feathered visitors for a year. Seasonal changes in the landscape and the random comings and goings of birds appear against the static arrangement of the feeders. With its large size, compelling detail, and vivid color, the photograph conjures a window on the world—or the constructed reality of a museum diorama.
Bank of America Collection
© Dodo Jin Ming
DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, born 1955)
Free Element, Plate V
2001
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Dodo Jin Ming
Self-taught photographer Dodo Jin Ming constructs dramatic seascapes that convey the sublimity of the natural world. She has worked along the coasts of Hong Kong, Nova Scotia, and Maine, shooting both crashing waves and roiling clouds. Jin Ming sometimes straps herself to a rock or hangs by a rope to capture ocean surfaces from a perfect angle. Later, she combines multiple negatives to build fantastic images.
Modern Women/Modern Vision: Works from the Bank of America Collection has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. This exhibition is presented with generous support from the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS4.
