Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan Princeton University Art Museum On View April 19 to September 7, 2026

As many readers of this blog know, Minor White was the catalyst for my life in photography. The 1989 show at MOMA, Minor White: The Eye That Shapes impressed upon me how an artist can move you and communicate to you across time and geography. “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are”, this is a mantra that has followed me throughout my photographic life.

But the subject of this show at The Princeton University Art Museum is not Minor White the photo guru and mystic, but Minor White the educator. Along with Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, Minor White carved out a new role for photographers and photography in the decades after World War II. Inclined towards the more contemplative and abstract in photography, these three photographers “transformed the ways photography was taught, practiced, shown, and understood, creating a lasting impact that reached far beyond their classrooms and workshops. Photography as a Way of Life shows how these influential teachers and theorists reimagined the medium as a livelihood and a life’s work” according to the curator Brendan Fay.

The highlight of the show are the multiple pieces from The Minor White Archives that have never before been publicly available. There is a light table strewn with Minor White’s 35mm color slides. The museum provides a magnifying glass for a more close up view. Unfortunately you can’t pick them up as the slides, although strewn on the light table, are protected by a piece of plexiglass placed over them. Still it always thrills me when I see ektachrome slides still display their brilliant colors even after 50 or 60 years.

There is also the display of one of Minor White’s unpublished books on photography. As well as digitized examples of pages on a nearby ipad. At the very end of the exhibit hall there is a reconstruction of White’s Slow Dance, a projected sequence of color slides performed for live audiences in the late 1960s and 1970s. A great way to end the show.

This is a must for any serious or even curious student of Minor White and the school of contemplative and abstract photography and photographers that thrived in mid 20th century America.