This post was updated July 2, 2025 to include reports on my Outside Influence exhibitions at the University of Denver’s Vicki Myhren Gallery (February 13-April 27), Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass (June 3 - 18), and the “Picture This: Photography, Truth and Social Change” roundtable at the Aspen Ideas Festival, June 30, 2025.

THE Myhren Gallery show was two years in the making and the first tangible manifestation of eight years research into Colorado photography’s post-WWII / pre-21st century history. As I look at the sequence of in-process images below, I have to marvel at how systematic the installation process can be when it’s well organized (thanks to gallery manager Lauren Anuszewski). As I explained to visitors, that included choosing a color for the MidCentury display wall to match the color used in a 1960 exhibition at MoMA in New York. My show replicated MoMA’s use of the same Syl Labrot image and several by Walter Chappell, who lived in Denver in the early-to-mid 1950s (both artists are featured in previous posts on this site.)

Images above, L-R: Myhren Gallery exterior, with banner featuring an image by Cherie Hiser; MidCentury display featuring at left a vinyl enlargement of Syl Labrot’s Tree Trunk, 1957, and at right images by Hal Gould and Winter Prather; Myhren Gallery entrance with statement and images by David Sharpe (left) and Cal Sparks (right).

AFTER unpacking and laying out all the work I was struck by the amount of color that jumped off the walls, particularly in the portrait sections. Chronologically, color became prominent in the 1970s; prior to that time, most of the works were gelatin silver prints or variations of monochrome processes. To actually see color bursting out of the gallery walls revealed the profound impact of color on modern analog practice, and also prompted a quick re-imagining of my book’s contents and sequencing before the design was locked down.

To show the impact that color had in the gallery, here are a few of my favorite walls: in sequence moving left to right they show the Barbara Houghton’s Unsportsmanlike Conduct, which filled the wall opposite the entrance; the Denver Salon wall, naturally arranged salon-style; one of three portrait walls that featured works by (l-r) Ray Beasley, John Bonath, Vidie Lange, and Daniel Salazar (a crowd favorite in Denver and Aspen).

I’M pleased to say the Myhren gallery reception was packed with artists and friends (photos by Mark Sink below) and (with one notable, unnamed exception) the show was well received. Art critic Ray Mark Rinaldi wrote a very positive review (here) in the Denver Post, and a gallery talk between myself and Albert Chong, Natascha Seideneck, and Ellen MacFarlane raised a lot of talking points not just about the show but about photography in general.

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AT the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, the show included several works by Aspen-based photographers not in the Denver show - they included Peter de Lory, David Hiser, Barbara Jo Revelle, and Arnold Gassan. (Also representing Aspen were Cherie Hiser and Herbert Bayer.) In that way, I hoped to emphasize many of the Aspen region’s connections to our photo history, which include the 1951 Aspen conference on photography, Cherie Hiser’s Center of the Eye workshop, and John Schoenwalter’s Lower East Side Gallery, all of which were located at the Hotel Jerome. For information about the Anderson Ranch show, click here.

As in Denver, the reception was a joyous reunion of photographers who were active in the Aspen region from the 1960s on. Anderson Ranch photography and media coordinator Andrea Jenkins Wallace (no relation) moderated a short conversation between myself and Lisa Hancock, director of the Aspen Historical Society. Lisa is developing the Society’s Center of the Eye arc hive, so that was a major topic of our discussion, as was the 1951 Aspen photo conference. The conference was of special interest to Graham Veysey and Emily Talkow of the Aspen ideas Festival. The photos below from the Anderson Ranch reception were taken by Beau Toepfer, who reviewed the show for the Aspen Times. L-R: Andrea Jenkins Wallace, myself, Lisa Hancock speaking at the reception; exhibiting artists David Hiser, Paul Schroder, Roddy MacInnes and myself; David Hiser with his photographs. Installation shots by me.

On June 18, the day I de-installed the Snowmass show, Graham and Emily opened their own exhibition of the 1951 conference, which served as a venue for a roundtable discussion of photography during the Ideas Festival on June 30. The show included a vintage image by each of the conference’s photographer panelists, ephemera from the collection of the Aspen Historical Society, and the classic image of participants taken by Robert C. Bishop in the Hotel Jerome lobby. It also included a Bishop image of an Ansel Adams workshop gathering I hadn’t seen before that was notable for the number of women photographers it showed.

As I write in my book, aside from a handful of prominent documentarians (including Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, and Laura Gilpin, who were all at the conference) women were largely written out of photography’s post-WWII history, so it is fascinating to see so many unidentified women in Bishop’s picture. As an aside, it was also fascinating to see a guest log-in book that included Ben Benschneider’s signature. Benshneider is known to me as one of two people who taught a neophyte Robert Adams the technical aspects of photography (the other was Myron Wood), and as the director of the Summer Photography Institute at Colorado College in the 1970s-80s. By one of those wonderful convergences, he can be seen in Bishop’s photograph of the crowd gathered around Adams.

Below are some pictures I took at the “Picture This: Photography, Truth and Social Change” roundtable at the Aspen Ideas Festival June 30, 2025, plus one of me, Emily, and Graham of the Ideas Festival taken at their exhibition reception by Evan Soroka. (More pictures taken by Ideas festival staff can be found here.) I will follow up on the roundtable in my next post.

Panorama of the Aspen Ideas roundtable, June 30, 2025. At left: Andrea Jenkins Wallace, at right: Kiku Obata.

My book will be published by the University Press of Colorado in November and is currently in the final proofing phase. The cover design by Tina Kaschele (shown above) features our signature image by Cherie Hiser paired with a detail of Stoney Pass, San Juan National Forest, Colorado, 1997, a superb landscape by Willy Sutton. Thematically, the images convey a fine sense of the communal influence and outdoor allure that run through the book’s narrative.

I hope you’ll take advantage of the special offer for advance orders. In future weeks I’ll be sending out notices about book signings and bookstore locations.

Thanks for reading! Rupert

Please leave a comment or question, and thanks for your interest in our regional photo history!

The Colorado Photo History blog is the online presence for “Outside Influence: Photography in Colorado 1945-1995,” a University Press of Colorado book by Rupert Jenkins. Forthcoming September 2025.

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