When Ellen G. D'Oench was appointed Curator of the Davison Art Center in 1979, photographs were only beginning to be accepted as a serious art form within many museums. The previous Curator, Richard Field, had firmly established the Davison Art Center photography collection, yet it was D'Oench who over the next nineteen years acquired more than half of all the photographs now in the collection--over 4,000 of approximately 6,000.

Set against the rise of photography in the United States as a field for collecting, this exhibition surveyed the highlights of one collection, as it was developed by one curator. By the time D'Oench retired in 1998, the medium of photography was widely acclaimed and avidly pursued. The exhibition of more than 50 photographs included works by Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Aaron Siskind, and many more. Featured was a cyanotype by early photographer Anna Atkins, purchased in memory of D'Oench.