WEST PALM BEACH.- Opening to the public tomorrow, October 11, 2008, Coming Into Focus: Jeane von Oppenheim and Photography at the Norton, 1998—2008, celebrates the 10th anniversary of Baroness Jeane von Oppenheim’s significant donation of over 650 photographs. Her generous contribution propelled the Norton Museum into collecting photography seriously, and therefore, as having one of the leading photography collections in the southeast. Since the initial 1998 donation, Jeane has continued to support the Norton Museum’s photography program and is now the head of the Photography Committee.

Coming Into Focus includes over 75 photographs—some from the original gift and some more recent donations by von Oppenheim—reflecting the changing nature of the photographic medium. While the exhibition is a virtual history lesson—featuring many of the most significant names of 20th-century photography and photo-based artworks, including works by such notables as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Walker Evans, Candida Höfer, Robert Mapplethorpe, Arnold Newman, Sigmar Polke, and Edward Steichen—the exhibition also reflects Jeane’s unflinching eye for great photographs by individuals who might not be familiar to even the most sophisticated audience. For example, Edwin Hale Lincoln and Bevan Davies, not widely known for their beautiful work—a true testament to the eye of a great collector—will be featured along with 50 other photographers, all of whom have helped to define the medium of photography as an art form in Coming Into Focus and its companion, 144 page hardbound catalogue.

Along with a forward by the Norton Museum’s Director, Christina Orr-Cahall, the catalogue will include texts on each photographer. Copies of the catalogue will be available for purchase in the in the Norton Museum Store.

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art.

The catalogue was made possible through the generosity of the Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft.

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