Icons In Hand: Masterworks from a Local Collection
Exhibition Dates: January 9 – March 1, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, January 9, 2026, 5-8pm
This exhibition brings museum-caliber black-and-white photographs by many of photography’s greats right to Brattleboro. Drawn from a remarkable local collection, these prints invite you to get close—see the paper, the grain, the edge of the negative—and slow down with images that carry time and story across generations. It’s a chance to experience iconic photographs as objects, not just pictures on a screen: how they’re printed, toned, and cared for, and why those choices matter to what we see and feel.
The exhibition brings together 36 works by 31 artists, spanning nearly a century of photographic history, with dates ranging from 1916 to 2004. The selection highlights both silver gelatin and platinum prints, offering a rich material and historical range that underscores the enduring power and evolution of the photographic print.
Co-curated by Joshua Farr and Mitch Weiss, the exhibition also opens a welcoming conversation about collecting: why people choose to live with photographs, how a print’s history and process shape its meaning, and how private stewardship can strengthen a community’s cultural life. Icons In Hand is both a celebration of photography’s classics and a thank-you to the neighbors who safeguard them. Above all, it reflects VCP’s role as a place where artists, audiences, and prints meet – face to face, in the shared light of the gallery.
The exhibition includes works by Ansel Adams, Dianne Arbus, Ruth Bernhard, Édouard Boubat, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Horace Bristol, Harry Callahan, Paul Caponigro, Judy Dater, Walker Evans, Leonard Freed, Lee Friedlander, Ralph Gibson, Emmet Gowin, André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, Nathan Lyons, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Duane Michals, Arnold Newman, Ruth Orkin, Man Ray, Sebastião Salgado, Edward Steichen, George Tice, Jerry Uelsmann, John Vachon, Edward Weston, & Garry Winogrand.
This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of Mark Tarmy.