19 Facts About Beaumont Newhall

Beaumont Newhall was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum.

Beaumont Newhall was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, United States, on June 22,1908.

Beaumont Newhall was the son of Herbert W Newhall and Alice Lillia Davis.

Beaumont Newhall recalled watching his mother in her darkroom as she developed her own glass plate images as well as dipping his fingers into the chemical trays to see what they tasted like.

Sachs helped Beaumont Newhall obtain a position as lecturer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia.

Beaumont Newhall continued his graduate studies at the Institute of Art and Archaeology of the University of Paris, and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Beaumont Newhall worked briefly for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Massachusetts branch of the Public Works Administration.

The exhibition that Beaumont Newhall mounted was pivotal in securing photography's place within the arts.

In 1940, Beaumont Newhall became the first curator of MoMA's photography department and decisively began collecting for the Museum, starting with the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

Beaumont Newhall married Nancy Wynne, a notable photography critic who worked in his place as curator at MoMA during his service in World War II, in which his rank was First Lieutenant.

Beaumont Newhall was posted to Italy and North Africa as a photo-interpreter of aerials taken over enemy territory, and then returned to America to train others.

In 1946 Beaumont Newhall was invited by Josef Albers to lecture on the history of photography at Black Mountain College.

Beaumont Newhall resigned from the Museum in 1947 after he found that Edward Steichen was to direct the Photography Department over him, while he was to be curator.

Beaumont Newhall received a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to start a new edition of his The History of Photography, and began research into the history of the daguerreotype in America, where its use had continued for a decade after its obsolescence in Europe.

Beaumont Newhall was joined there by Minor White who took over editorship of Image, the magazine Newhall issued from the Museum, which later passed on to Nathan Lyons who turned it into a respected quarterly.

Beaumont Newhall published books through the Museum including Edward Weston's Daybooks, co-published with Horizon press; Photographers on Photography edited by Lyons; and on Aaron Siskind.

Beaumont Newhall served as an honorary trustee of the Eastman House until his death.

Beaumont Newhall died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on February 26,1993.

Beaumont Newhall was predeceased by his wife Nancy on July 7,1974 from injuries she sustained when struck by a falling tree on the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park.