NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s newest exhibition highlights 70 years of photographs by John T. Hill (born 1934), displaying the remarkable scope and empathy of the Connecticut photographer’s artistic vision. Hill, a photographer, graphic designer, and author, co-founded Yale’s Department of Photography and was its first director of Graduate Studies. His show, Random Access, opens Saturday, June 17 and runs through September 10.

The exhibition coincides with the publication of Hill’s book Random Access produced by Steidl Verlag, Europe’s leading publisher of art books. For the first time, Hill explores his artistic focus, which he calls “found compositions,” recording spontaneous opportunities that strike a personal chord.

Hill, who was executor of the Walker Evans estate for 19 years, produced numerous books and exhibitions on this iconic artist both here and abroad. In addition, he designed and co- authored books presenting the work of several other well-known artists, including W. Eugene Smith, Edward Weston, Alexander Calder, Norman Ives, Herbert Matter, Erwin Hauer and William E. Crawford.

“When I’m holding a camera,” Hill explained, “I am open to whatever I may encounter. I go out with an open mind and engage those images that seem most provocative. They are fragments of time intended to intrigue and excite the imagination.”

From Piazza Navona in Rome in 1958 to a peaceful May Day demonstration on the Green in New Haven in 1970, from a crowd waiting for John F. Kennedy at the podium of a 1960 rally to tango dancers in Argentina, from a portrait of Edna Lewis to Walker Evans’ home and landscapes, his work is democratic, curious, all-embracing.

The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 with a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neoclassical building surrounded by 12 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents several changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of over 17,000 objects from ancient times to the present, including art from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses.

The opening reception is Saturday, June 24 from 4 to 6 p.m.