WEST PALM BEACH, FL.-The Norton Museum of Art is pleased to introduce The Hunter Gift: Elliott Erwitt and Garry Winogrand, the first in a series of three tightly focused exhibitions to be presented in 2007 and 2008 that will celebrate the significant gift of photographs by Mrs. Irene Hunter of Delray Beach, Florida and Manchester Center, Vermont. Mrs. Hunter’s gift of 162 photographs was recently given to the Norton Museum and consists of some of the most important photographers of the 20th century.

The photographs by Erwitt and Winogrand that are being featured have been selected from portfolios produced by each photographer in the late 1970s. As a group they invite a much closer reading of what is nothing less than a collection of complex visual narratives. Deceptively simple in appearance, the images nonetheless belie a quick glance—even though that might have been how they were first seen by each photographer.

Both Elliott Erwitt and Garry Winogrand during their careers made a name for themselves by being on the streets, out in the world, making quickly, and seemingly effortlessly, countless exposures of any number of subjects and situations. These two photographers share an uncanny ability to capture the astonishing diversity of the human condition and those subtleties that most often go unnoticed or unappreciated, and silently move past each of us all too quickly — a snapshot of life.

Elliott Erwitt was born in Paris to Russian parents. After emigrating from Europe to the United States in 1939, he studied photography and film and began to support himself as a photographer and then as a photographic assistant with the U.S. Army. In 1953, Erwitt joined the prestigious Magnum photo agency and began shooting journalistic essays around the world, as well as high profile commercial assignments. Since the 1970s, he has turned much of his energy toward the production of films, commercials, and documentaries.

I studied photography by reading the instructions on the box of film. —Elliott Erwitt

Garry Winogrand was born in New York City and discovered photography while studying painting at Columbia University. His work as a freelance photojournalist began to take a more artistic approach in the 1960s, earning him three Guggenheim Fellowship Awards. Winogrand also taught photography at both the University of Texas at Austin and the Art Institute of Chicago. At the time of his death in 1984, he left more than 2,500 undeveloped rolls of film and 300,000 unedited images.

A lot of famous photographers seem to be good at talking about pictures (or at least giving good quotes); possibly it's part of the job...—Garry Winnogrand

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art.

This exhibition is made possible in part through the generosity of the Photography Committee of the Norton Museum of Art.