The Hallmark Photographic Collection was amassed by Hallmark Cards, Inc. and donated to the

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

in December 2005. At the time of donation, the collection consisted of 6,500 images by 900 artists, with an estimated value of $65 million. The collection spans the history of photography, from 1839 to the present, with works by

Southworth & Hawes Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843–1863. Its partners, Albert Sands Southworth (1811–1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901), have been hailed as the first great American masters of photography, whose work ...

Carleton Watkins Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916) was an American photographer of the 19th century. Born in New York, he moved to California and quickly became interested in photography. He focused mainly on landscape photography, and Yosemite Valley was a ...

, Timothy O'Sullivan, Alvin Langdon Coburn,

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...

, Harry Callahan, Jerry N. Uelsmann,

Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of his photographs including fragm ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

, and

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

. First started in 1964, the collection was one of the earliest corporate photography collections. Hallmark vice president David Strout made the first acquisition of 141 prints by Harry Callahan. These were exhibited in New York in fall 1964, at the Hallmark Gallery store at 720 Fifth Avenue. In the next 12 years, bodies of work by major leading photographers, from Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham to László Moholy-Nagy and Linda Connor were acquired. Since 1979, the collection was expanded by

Keith F. Davis Keith F. Davis (born 1952) is an American photography curator, collector, and the author of several books on photography. Between 1979 and 2005, Davis built the Hallmark Photographic Collection, spanning the history of American photography. In Dece ...

from 650 works by about 35 photographers, to 6,500 works by about 900 artists. He organized dozens of exhibitions from the collection for tours, and authored a number of publications, including ''An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital, The Hallmark Photographic Collection'', 2nd edition (Abrams, 1999). Other publications include ''Harry Callahan: New Color, Photographs 1978-1987'' (1988); ''George N. Barnard: Photographer of Sherman's Campaign'' (1990); ''Clarence John Laughlin: Visionary Photographer'' (1990); and ''The Photographs of Dorothea Lange'' (1995). To accompany a 2007 exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, a survey by Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall of the collection's key 19th century contents was published: ''The Origins of American Photography, 1839-1885, from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate'' (2007).

References

Photographic collections and books Hallmark Cards {{Photo-stub