TUCSON, AZ — The Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona has announced the acquisition of nine significant photography archives, marking one of the most substantial expansions of its holdings in recent years. The donated archives, which have been in the planning stage for years, represent an extraordinary cross-section of 20th- and 21st-century photographic practices, strengthening CCP’s position as one of the nation’s most important research centers for photographic history, education, and scholarship.
The newly acquired archives, representing the legacies:

  • Laura Aguilar
  • Jack Dykinga
  • Jody Forster
  • Frank Gohlke
  • Mark Klett
  • Nathan Lyons
  • Stephen Marc
  • Patrick Nagatani
  • Susan Wood
     

These nine photographers will join CCP’s renowned holdings, which include the archives of Ansel Adams, W. Eugene Smith, David Hume Kennerly, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Robert Heinecken, and many others.


“These remarkable archives expand the creative and intellectual constellation that makes the Center for Creative Photography one of the foremost photography institutions in the world,” said Todd J. Tubutis, CCP Director. “Each archive contains not only prints of iconic images but also valuable documentary materials—such as correspondence, notebooks, teaching materials, and working proofs—that illuminate a photographer’s full creative evolution. As an extraordinary group, these important acquisitions strengthen the connective tissue that defines the history of photography in the United States.”

 

The announcement reflects CCP’s distinctive model, based on collecting complete artist archives, providing scholars access not only to finished works but also to the ideas, experiments, and professional networks behind them. CCP houses one of the largest cold-storage facilities dedicated to photographic materials for an institution of its size, ensuring long-term preservation of film, negatives, color prints, and other sensitive materials. Some materials from these new archives have already arrived at CCP, while others are expected to be delivered and processed over the next several years. Access for researchers will follow processing by CCP’s archivists.


Following the acquisition of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly in 2019, CCP created a new space for exhibitions, the first since the building opened in 1989: the Alice Chaiten Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery. Dedicated to encouraging the study of photography across disciplines, the Baker Gallery provides opportunities for students and faculty to integrate CCP’s vast archival collection into their study of world history, journalism, nursing, literature, veterinary science, gender studies, and environmental studies, among many others.


“Ansel Adams was an exhibiting artist at the University of Arizona in 1974 when he was approached by the president of the university (Dr. John P. Schaefer) about his archive, and the two set in motion a relationship that would result in the creation of CCP,” noted Rebecca Senf, CCP Chief Curator and Adams’ scholar.


“The Center’s DNA is an institution created by an artist for other artists, and this ethic continues to inform our work at every level.”


About the Nine Photographers

Laura Aguilar (1959–2018)
Laura Aguilar’s work reshaped conversations around identity, community, the body, and visibility, thus expanding narratives about the Latinx and queer experience. Mostly self-taught and often using her body as a subject, she fused portraiture with landscape, still life, and text, inviting expansive reflection on self and culture. Aguilar’s work has appeared in more than 50 national and international exhibitions, including the 1993 Venice Biennale; Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, her retrospective at the Vincent Price Art Museum (Los Angeles, 2017–18), which traveled to the Frost Art Museum (Miami) and the National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York, 2021); and Phoenix Art Museum (2023-2024). Her images are the subject of extensive scholarship and appear in monographs, catalogues, and major group exhibitions. Aguilar’s work is held in public collections including those at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her archive includes negatives, contact sheets, video works, writings, personal effects, and ephemera that chart the evolution of her influential practice.

Jack Dykinga (b. 1943)
Jack Dykinga is an award–winning photojournalist and landscape photographer whose career bridges incisive social reporting and environmental advocacy. After winning the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of conditions at state-run mental hospitals in Illinois, Dykinga turned toward conservation photography with a focus on the American Southwest and its fragile ecosystems. His work has been exhibited widely, including museum shows and gallery presentations that emphasize landscape, ecological threat, and preservation. Dykinga’s photographs are widely published in books with notable titles including The Sonoran Desert (1992), Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau (1996), Jack Dykinga’s Arizona (2004) and other monographs that document both dramatic terrain and urgent conservation issues. His images have appeared in National Geographic, Arizona Highways, and other major publications, significantly shaping public awareness of Southwestern landscapes and environmental stewardship. Dykinga’s archive contains extensive field photography, conservation project documentation, aerial imagery, and materials from decades of work at the intersection of art and advocacy.


Jody Forster (1948-2020)
Jody Forster is recognized for his photographs of expansive natural landscapes. Raised in a military family, Forster moved frequently across the United States and Europe, experiences that fueled his enduring interest in landscape subjects. Although he initially trained in drawing and painting, he transitioned to photography during his collegiate studies, ultimately earning a BA in Photography from California State University, Los Angeles in 1972. He further refined his technical abilities at an Ansel Adams Yosemite workshop. Working within the tradition of 19th- and 20th-century American landscape photographers, Forster predominantly utilized 8x10 view cameras, producing dramatic images of the vistas of western North America. His large-format silver prints are distinguished by their striking use of light and composition, conveying the majesty of mountains, deserts, and canyons. An avid outdoorsman, Forster’s work extended internationally: he photographed the Himalayas in Nepal between 1984 and 1985, and was chosen by the National Science Foundation to participate in the U.S. Antarctic Artists and Writers Program in the 1990s, where he documented remote Antarctic landscapes.


Frank Gohlke (b. 1942)
Born in Texas, Frank Gohlke is a leading figure in American landscape photography, known for rigorous examinations of the built and natural environment. He was included in the watershed exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman Museum (Rochester, 1975–76), a show that redefined landscape photography practice. Gohlke’s work has also been featured in major solo exhibitions such as Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke, organized by the Amon Carter Museum and shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C., 2008–2009). His photographs have appeared in influential galleries and museums including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), which mounted presentations of his Mount St. Helens series and other projects across the 1980s–2000s. Gohlke’s books include Landscapes from the Middle of the World (1988), Accommodating Nature (2007), and Speeding Trucks and Other Follies (2026). His archive traces decades of field research, teaching, photographic printmaking, and writing, offering deep insight into landscape, resilience, and photographic inquiry. Gohlke is emeritus faculty at the University of Arizona and is the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Fulbright Scholar Grant.

Mark Klett (b. 1952)
Mark Klett is a photographer of the Western landscape whose work speaks broadly about issues of place, culture, history, land use, and the passage of time. A key figure in the rephotography movement, Klett's experience on the Rephotographic Survey Project team (1977-79), in which the group reframed 19th-century Western photographic sites by revisiting them decades later, made a lasting impact on his artistic career. Both book-making and collaboration have been critical components of his practice: projects like Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project (1984), Revealing Territory (1992), Third Views, Second Sights (2004), and Seeing Time: Forty Years of Photographs (2020) trace his career and collaboration with historians, other photographers, and writers. Solo exhibitions of Klett’s work include Mark Klett: Oklahoma City Panorama at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (2007-2008), and other institutional shows that highlight historical and panoramic approaches to place. His work is held in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; and surveyed in retrospective publications. An Emeritus Professor in the School of Art Arizona State University, Klett has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Japan/US Friendship Commission. His archive encompasses film, prints, field notes, teaching resources, and collaborations that map changes in landscape and perception across decades.

 

Nathan Lyons (1930–2016)
Nathan Lyons, whose multifaceted career began in the 1950s, was an influential American photographer, curator, educator, and author who helped shape the direction of contemporary photography. As associate director and curator of photographs at George Eastman Museum in the 1960s, he advocated for photography as an art form. In 1969, Lyons founded the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, fostering photographic education and experimentation. His own photography, often shown as diptychs, is noted for its keen eye for graphic elements, attention to detail, and a searching approach to his subjects. With stark observational black-and-white images documenting human-made spaces and daily life, he often explored the complexities of built environments and the subtle ironies found in everyday scenes. Lyon’s work was featured in major exhibitions including The Photographer’s Eye (1964) and Mirrors and Windows (1978) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Notable books that paired his photography with critical essays include Notations in Passage (1974) and Riding 1st Class on the Titanic (1999). His impact on the field was recognized with the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography in 2000.


Stephen Marc (b. 1954)
Stephen Marc is a documentary and street photographer and digital montage artist known for long-term engagement with American social and cultural landscapes. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, his maximalist compositional style balances formal precision with empathetic observation, capturing community life, vernacular spaces, historical documentation, and regional identity. Marc’s photography has been presented in major regional and national exhibitions that explore documentary practice and social themes, often accompanied by project catalogues and critical essays that situate his work within broader cultural contexts. Known for mentoring emerging photographers and shaping discourse on documentary methodology and ethical representation, Marc is Emeritus Professor of Art in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where he began teaching in 1998, after 20 years on the faculty of the Department of Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Marc has published five photography books: American/True Colors (2020), Passage on the Underground Railroad (2009), The Black Trans-Atlantic Experience: Street Life and Culture in Ghana, Jamaica, England, and the United States (1992), Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times: An American Journey Continues (2023) and Urban Notions (1983). His archive includes negatives, prints, correspondence, project notes, and teaching materials that reflect decades of practice rooted in thoughtful observation, contextual storytelling, and sustained commitment to place-based work.


Patrick Nagatani (1945–2017)
Patrick Nagatani was a groundbreaking artist known for constructed photography, staging scenes that blend narrative, myth, and social critique to make fictional histories and challenge perceptions of reality. His major retrospective Desire for Magic: Patrick Nagatani 1978–2008 premiered at the University of New Mexico Art Museum (2010) and traveled to the Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles) and Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences (West Virginia), surveying four decades of work. Nagatani’s series Nuclear Enchantment (1988–93) received critical recognition and was the basis of a 1991 monograph. His early works and Polaroid collaborations were exhibited at galleries and institutions nationwide. Nagatani’s writings and practice probed the Japanese American experience, technology, the nuclear age, memory, and storytelling. Other publications include Buried Cars: Excavations from Stonehenge to the Grand Canyon (2018) and Patrick Nagatani / Andrée Tracey Polaroid 20×24 Photographs 1983–1986 (1987). Nagatani was also a University of New Mexico Regents' professor of photography in the department of art and art history at the University of New Mexico from 1987-2007, and was beloved as an educator, receiving the Honored Educator Award from the Society for Photographic Education in 2008. His artistic honors and awards including Visual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1984 and 1992, a Photographer’s Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation in 1997, and the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2007. His archive comprises maquettes, prints, research files, audio-visual recordings, and installation materials essential to understanding his layered, theatrical approach to photographic meaning.


Susan Wood (b. 1932)
New Yorker Susan Wood is an internationally published photographer celebrated for intimate and incisive images of cultural figures across art, fashion, and media. Mademoiselle named her as one of their 10 Women of the Year in 1961. Her photographs appeared in such magazines as Vogue, Life, People, Sports Illustrated, and New York from the 1950s through the 1980s, including an iconic 1969 cover portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Look. She was the stills photographer on films including Easy Rider (1969) and Modesty Blaise (1966). Her book Women: Portraits 1960–2000 (2018) compiles striking images of such influential women as Diane von Furstenberg, Gloria Steinem, and Martha Stewart. Other books include Ireland (2018) and Hampton Style (1992, as co-author). The winner of Art Director and Clio awards, her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include Wind Up (Irish Georgian Society, Dublin, 2023) and Susan Wood: In Time (Laughlin Gallery, 2024). Her archive includes prints, negatives, slides, Polaroids, test prints, tear sheets, exhibition posters and postcards, and publications featuring her work, illuminating the evolution of editorial and advertising photography in the last 75 years.
 

 

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