Modern Women / Modern Vision: Photographs from the Bank of America Collection, on view at the Hudson River Museum from January 30 through May 10, 2026, offers a sweeping exploration of photography through the eyes of women who helped shape the medium from its earliest moments to the present day. Featuring nearly one hundred works, the exhibition foregrounds photography as a site of innovation, resistance, and self-determination, revealing how women consistently expanded the boundaries of visual culture across generations and continents.
Organized into six thematic sections, the exhibition traces photography’s evolution alongside major social and historical shifts. From early modernist experimentation to the urgency of documentary work during the New Deal era, and from the collective activism of the Photo League to contemporary global perspectives, these photographs reveal how women used the camera to interpret—and often challenge—the world around them. Their images do more than record events; they propose new ways of seeing, questioning dominant narratives and redefining whose stories are worthy of attention.
Throughout the twentieth century, women photographers navigated rapidly changing social landscapes, using photography as both a creative outlet and a means of independence. Many forged professional paths in the face of systemic barriers, pursuing subjects overlooked or dismissed by their male counterparts. Their work encompasses intimate portraits, experimental self-representation, political critique, environmental studies, and deeply human documentary projects, demonstrating an extraordinary range of approaches unified by curiosity, rigor, and vision.
The exhibition brings together iconic figures and lesser-known voices, placing celebrated images into dialogue with works that deserve renewed recognition. Familiar photographs gain new resonance when viewed within broader historical and thematic contexts, while contemporary works underscore the ongoing vitality of women’s contributions to photography. Across styles that range from formal precision to emotional immediacy, these images reflect shifting ideas of identity, power, place, and representation.
Modern Women / Modern Vision ultimately affirms photography as a medium profoundly shaped by women’s perspectives. By highlighting their enduring influence, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the history of photography not as a linear progression dominated by a few names, but as a complex, evolving conversation enriched by diverse experiences and bold acts of looking.
Image:
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965). Child and Her Mother, Wapato, Yakima Valley, Washington, 1939. Gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection. © Dorothea Lange