The exhibition Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection opens today at the Ransom Center.

Drawn from the peerless collection of Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, the exhibition features masterpieces from photography’s first 150 years, alongside other images that, while lesser known, are integral to the medium’s history. Highlights include the first photograph (on permanent display at the Ransom Center); works by nineteenth-century masters such as Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Henry Peach Robinson; and iconic images by modern photographers such as Man Ray, Edward Weston, Robert Capa, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Harry Ransom Center will celebrate the opening of the exhibition with “A Picture Perfect Evening” on Friday, September 10th from 6 to 8 p.m. The event is free for Ransom Center…

Manuel Álvarez Bravo ‘Señor de Papantia’ (’Man from Papantia’), 1934-35

The Blanton Museum of Art’s current exhibition Manuel Álvarez Bravo and His Contemporaries features works from the Ransom Center’s photography collections. Blanton Associate Curator of Latin American Art Ursula Davila-Villa discusses the life and work of Álvarez Bravo.

One of the most fascinating aspects of photography is how images change the way we look at the ordinary in the world. Manuel Álvarez Bravo, a master in transforming the everyday into extraordinary images, worked during one of the most important and transformative periods in the history of Mexico. He was a prolific photographer who lived for 100 years. During the 1930s and 1940s, his photographs laid bare a city that saw rapid urban changes…

Ransom Center Curator of Photography David Coleman unpacks materials from the Magnum archive. Photo by Pete Smith.

Ransom Center Curator of Photography David Coleman shares his thoughts on the Magnum Archive Collection coming to the Center. At that same link, view a video of Magnum Director Mark Lubell discussing the significance of the Magnum Archive Collection.

The roster includes more than 95 photographers who would, on their own, make up a definitive who’s who list of photography for the past six decades. More significantly, however, they compose what is perhaps the most recognizable single organization in 20th-century photography: Magnum. Magnum has never been the largest photo agency, but for more than 60 years the cooperative’s notoriously exclusive process of membership has forged…