The Met Receives Promised Gift of 700+ Photographs from 1840s to 1910s

“We are incredibly grateful to Jennifer and Philip Maritz for this major gift in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020. We also thank Joyce Frank Menschel for her critical support that enabled us to add depth to our renowned collection of photographs from the Civil War,” said Max Hollein, Director of The Met. “The William L. Schaeffer Collection deepens the Museum’s holdings of American photography. It allows us to dramatically expand the canon by introducing extraordinary works by hundreds of previously unknown American masters. In the context of the Museum’s rich collection, the photographs also invite questions about what we know about the birth and development of the medium in its first 70 years or so.”

Jeff Rosenheim, the Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs at The Met, added, “Brilliantly amassed over 45 years, the William L. Schaeffer Collection includes extraordinary examples of every format of photography from the birth of the medium in 1839 to the modern era. With these unusual and little-known historical works, The Met will now be able to rewrite the narrative of American photography by associating established early masters of the genre—Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Moran, Charles DeForest Fredricks, and Carleton Watkins—with generally unknown makers whose lives and works have yet to be fully studied and presented to the general public.”