LACMA Acquires Former Palisadians’ Photo Archive

Julia Margaret Cameron (England, 1815-1879) “Mrs. Herbert Duckworth,” c. 1867, Albumen print from a collodion negative.
The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, and promised gift of Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin.
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Julia Margaret Cameron (England, 1815-1879) “Mrs. Herbert Duckworth,” c. 1867, Albumen print from a collodion negative.
The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, and promised gift of Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has acquired The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, a group of more than 3,500 prints that forms one of the finest histories of photography and collections of masterworks from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Highlights, including seminal photographs by Ansel Adams, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, W.H. Fox Talbot and Edward Weston, will be presented in LACMA’s exhibition, “A Story of Photography: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection,” opening October 5 in the Ahmanson Building. Through the largesse of Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, the collection becomes the most significant and valuable gift of photography in the museum’s history.
Annenberg’s support of LACMA includes a new study room, opening in early 2011, that will allow for access to the entire photography collection at LACMA.
Marjorie and Leonard Vernon, former Pacific Palisades residents now deceased, began to amass their expansive collection in 1976.
“People thought we were crazy,” Leonard recalled in an interview with the Palisadian-Post in 1999. “Our kids thought we were crazy!
“Three generations of people now have been surrounded with photographs,” Leonard continued. “In 1936, Life magazine began to use photos not only for reportage but also for illustration, so photography became a very significant part of their lives. It took another generation to realize that they were also surrounded by a very strong art form.”
The Vernons cultivated a group of works with global significance that especially highlighted the riches of West Coast photography in the early and mid-20th century. The collection grew over the years to include works by 700 photographers, with the earliest photographs dating from the 1840s. The couple were also pioneer Los Angeles collectors and supporters of local talent.
The collection was acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin, including a partial gift of a selection of the photographs. “My parents would be pleased to know that the collection they so passionately fostered will remain together in Los Angeles, a city rapidly developing into a photography collecting hub,” Carol said.
Key works on view in the Vernon collection will include Ansel Adams’ “Moonrise, Hernandez” (1941), one of his most famous and most difficult photographs to print, as well as Edward Weston’s “Nude” (1925), from what Weston considered the finest series of nudes he created, and Imogen Cunningham’s “Magnolia Blossom” (1925), which exemplifies the photographer’s interest in pattern and especially plant structures.
Other iconic works represented are Gustav le Gray’s “The Great Wave, Sete” (1856-57), a photograph that demonstrates le Gray’s ambition and invention in capturing the rapid movement of the surf at such an early stage of photography’s technical development. Julia Margaret Cameron’s “Mrs. Herbert Duckworth” (1867), also in the exhibition, is an example of exquisite framing and masterful lighting with the photographer’s niece, later to become Virginia Woolf’s mother, as the subject.
Contact: 323 857-6000 or visit lacma.org.