Collections - Introduction
The Center for Creative Photography holds more archives and individual works by 20th-century North American photographers than any other museum in the nation. These holdings include a research collection featuring the archives of over 50 photographers—Ansel Adams, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, W. Eugene Smith, and Edward Weston among them. Archives include photographs, negatives, albums, work prints, manuscripts, audio-visual material, contact sheets, correspondence and memorabilia. CCP’s art collection totals more than 80,000 works by 2,000 photographers.
Individuals or groups are invited to study works in the art collection by making an appointment. Researchers from all over the world visit the CCP to study the vast archives. CCP shares its collection with museums, educators, and publishers internationally through its Rights and Reproductions Department, with loans to exhibitions organized by other institutions and by offering original traveling exhibitions. Collection photographs and archival materials are on view in the Center’s exhibitions and are reproduced in its publications; the Center also loans works from its holdings to other institutions.