HYDE PARK — The Smart Museum of Art on Thursday will unveil some of the best works of a collection of 830 photos donated by a Hyde Park couple.
After Betty Guttman's death in 2014, her estate donated all of the photographs by more than 414 artists that she and her husband, Lester, collected over their lives, and the museum, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., is now ready to display some of the best ones.
“There was a whole collection made” opens Thursday and runs through Dec. 30 with a reception at 7 p.m. Sept. 28.
The Guttmans, who both worked at Argonne National Laboratory, were clearly discerning collectors, but also very broad, collecting works from nearly every major period of photographic history from 1844-2012.
U. of C. Professor Laura Letinsky has been going through their collection of work by Man Ray, William Henry Fox Talbot, Diane Arbus and others for the first public display at the museum.
“Rather than seeking to collect, for example, all the works of a specific artist, period or place, or the best-known or most precious, Lester and Betty Guttman’s choices grew out of their inquisitiveness and wide-ranging interests in the world,” Letinsky said.
Letinsky has organized their photos into six categories: the natural and built world; photographic experimentation; documentary; portraiture; living with art, a room that features photographs in the flat file cabinets that the Guttmans kept in their home; and "fifteen minutes of fame," which features portraits of famous and not-so-famous people by other famous, and not-so-famous photographers.
“The breadth of historical, technological, and conceptual strategies, as well as the variety of subject matter, demonstrate an ongoing curiosity,” Letinsky said. “It is a thoroughly eclectic and a fantastically personal gathering of images expressive of the Guttmans’ full, deep lives.”
She said it’s appropriate that the work be displayed first at the Smart Museum, the couple’s neighborhood museum.
The Guttmans were lifelong Hyde Parkers who shared interests in much more than photography. Lester was a scientist at Argonne and Betty was a technical librarian at the lab and both were avid mycologists in their free time, editing the mushroom journal McIlvainea together.
Lester died in 2006, and after Betty’s death in 2014 their photography collection was left to the Smart Museum as a bequest.
Co-curator Jessica Moss said the collection has become a vital resource for teaching and research and now also something to be enjoyed by visitors to the museum.
The exhibit is free and open to the public.
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