The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has received a promised gift of more than 6,5000 works from one of the world’s foremost photography collectors. The German American collector Artur Walther and his Walther Family Foundation will give the institution a trove of works including exceptional post-war and contemporary photography from Africa, Japan, Germany and China, as well as vernacular photos from Europe and the Americas. A special showcase of gifted works by African photographers will be featured in the Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing when it reopens following an extensive renovation later this month.
Since 2010, the Walther Collection has operated an exhibition programme from a museum campus in Walther's hometown of Neu-Ulm, Germany. From 2011 to 2021, it also operated a project space in New York’s Chelsea gallery district, mounting robust exhibitions that ranged from solo exhibitions to scholarly thematic and historical shows.
Bernd and Hilla Becher, Blast Furnaces, 1969-95 Promised gift of Artur Walther. © Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher. Represented by Max Becher
“It has been the collection’s mission to break away from traditional frameworks and to juxtapose works from African and Asian artists with those from Europe and America, creating a dialogue across time and place, across temporalities and across geographies,” Walther said in a statement. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s commitment to modern and contemporary art, and the arts of Africa and Asia, will continue this approach and will make the artworks available to its diverse constituency of visitors from all over the world.”
The collection is especially strong in four categories. It includes a wealth of photography from Africa spanning from the 20th century up to today, featuring among others works by Malick Sibidé, Zanele Muholi, David Goldblatt and Guy Tillim. It also features photo-based and video works by Chinese contemporary artists such as Ai Weiwei, Zhang Huan, Yang Fudong and others. Walther’s collecting began with a concentration on German photographers, including Bernd and Hilla Becher, August Sander, Thomas Struth, Günter Förg and Thomas Ruff. Most recently, Walther’s collecting focus has been on vernacular photography from the US, Europe, Mexico and Colombia that tracks the medium’s history as far back as daguerreotypes in the 1840s.
Unknown maker, Texaco Gas Station, Kamiah, Idaho (Idaho St.
& Hwy. 9. Camera facing Southwest; Camera facing South;
Camera facing West), 1 November 1940 Promised gift of the Walther Family Foundation
“With its impressive scope, depth and quality, the generous promised gift expands our ability to tell a global history of photography—one that reflects the diversity, complexity and artistry of the medium across centuries and continents,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director and chief executive, said in a statement. “It demonstrates Artur’s passion as a trailblazing collector and visionary explorer, and brings his sustained scholarly engagement with living artists and photographic practice to a new level.”
In addition to the forthcoming Rockefeller Wing showcase, pieces from the Walther gift will be included in permanent collection displays in the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, the $550m new Modern and contemporary art complex due to open in 2030.
