Modern Women / Modern Vision: Photographs from the Bank of America Collection
Modern Women / Modern Vision: Photographs from the Bank of America Collection features almost one hundred images by some of the most influential photographers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, drawn from Bank of America’s extensive photography collection.
Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904–1971). Chain Belt Movement: Machine Dance, Moscow Ballet School, 1931. From the portfolio U.S.S.R. Photographs, 1934. Printed 1934. Photogravure. Bank of America Collection. © 2025 Estate of Margaret Bourke-White / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Since photography’s inception in 1839, women have stood among its artistic and technological pioneers, at the forefront of every photographic movement and style. Iconic works by Diane Arbus, Graciela Iturbide, Barbara Kruger, Dorothea Lange, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie Mae Weems, alongside many others, tell the dynamic story of photography’s evolution across six thematic sections: Modernist Innovators, Documentary Photography and the New Deal, the Photo League, Modern Masters, Exploring the Environment, and the Global Contemporary Lens.
Women played an integral role in framing the modern experience through the lens of the camera. From 1900 onward, women negotiated waves of social, political, and economic change, increasingly leveraging photography as a means of creativity, financial independence, and personal freedom. Disrupting longstanding constraints placed on women’s social behavior and spheres, early trailblazers helped establish photography not only as a vital form of creative expression but also provided a unique window on society by pursuing subjects not deemed important to male photographers. They overcame discrimination and served as role models for subsequent generations of artists across the spectrum.
Diverse in style, tone, and subject, these photographs range from spontaneous to composed, detached to empathetic, monumental to intimate. Celebrated images now familiar to us are placed in historical and thematic contexts, and contemporary works are given new prominence. Modern Women / Modern Vision reveals the bold and dynamic ways women have contributed to the development and evolution of the art of photography.
This exhibition has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program.
Additional funding provided by New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, President Pro Tempore and Majority Leader.
Exhibitions are made possible by assistance provided by the County of Westchester.
Featured Artists
Berenice Abbott • Diane Arbus • Tina Barney • Virginia Beahan • Bernd & Hilla Becher • Ruth Bernhard • Eva Besnyö • Margaret Bourke-White • Esther Bubley • Ana Casas Broda • Marie Cosindas • Imogen Cunningham • Lynn Davis • Elspeth Diederix • Rineke Dijkstra • Carol Espindola • Terry Evans • Flor Garduño • Jan Groover • Candida Höfer • Graciela Iturbide • DoDo Jin Ming • Karina Juárez • Gertrude Käsebier • Barbara Klemm • Barbara Kruger • Dorothea Lange • Alejandra Laviada • Nikki S. Lee • Rebecca Lepkoff • Laura Letinsky • Helen Levitt • Vera Lutter • Neeta Madahar • Laura McPhee • Sonia Handelman Meyer • Lisette Model • Inge Morath • Barbara Morgan • Ruth Orkin • Melissa Ann Pinney • Liza May Post • Michal Rovner • Meridel Rubenstein • Tomoko Sawada • Cindy Sherman • Sandy Skoglund • Mette Tronvoll • Céline van Balen • Hellen van Meene • Carrie Mae Weems • Marion Post Wolcott • Mariana Yampolsky
Selected objects
Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991). Night View, New York, 1932 (printed later). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991). New York Stock Exchange, New York, 1934. From Changing New York, 1939 (printed later). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904–1971). Chain Belt Movement: Machine Dance, Moscow Ballet School, 1931. From the portfolio U.S.S.R. Photographs, 1934. Printed 1934. Photogravure. Bank of America Collection. © 2025 Estate of Margaret Bourke-White / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991). Court of the First Model Tenement, New York City, 1936 (printed 1979). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991). George Washington Bridge, Riverside Dr. & 179th Street, Manhattan, 1936. Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Tina Barney (American, b. 1945). Father & Sons, 1996 (printed 2006). Color coupler print. Bank of America Collection. © Tina Barney.
Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934). Portrait–Miss Minnie Ashley, 1905. Photogravure. Bank of America Collection.
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965). Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936. Printed 1967. Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965). Child and Her Mother, Wapato, Yakima Valley, Washington, 1939. Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954). Untitled Film Still #50, 1979 (printed 1989). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection. © Cindy Sherman.
Sandy Skoglund (American, b. 1946). Revenge of the Goldfish, 1981. Cibachrome print (edition 7 of 30). Bank of America Collection. © Sandy Skoglund.
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910–1990). Coal Miner’s Daughter Carrying Home Can of Kerosene, Company Housing, Scotts Run, West Virginia, 1938 (printed 1981). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910–1990). Vegetable Pickers, Migrants, Waiting After Work To Be Paid. Near Homestead, Florida, 1939 (printed 1978). Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
