A Special Exhibition at the ISAC Museum
April 17 – August 17, 2025
"Orientalism,” a term referring to academic and artistic bodies of work that depict aspects of West Asia and North Africa (the “Orient”), acquired negative connotations over time because of its underlying colonial biases. Applied to photography, it describes images and prints of the region produced since the mid-nineteenth century. Thanks to Edward Said’s seminal book Orientalism (1978), the meaning of the word has broadened from a strictly geographical definition to one that applies to depictions distinguishing a supposedly traditional “Orient” and a modernizing “West.”
This exhibition explores the beginnings of archaeological photography and how early travelers transformed it into popular retail. Prints were sold in large numbers by studios installed in Egypt and the Levant. Learn about the main photographers of the time represented in Chicago museums, whose collections are among the largest worldwide. The ISAC Museum Archives cares for one of the best-documented series, allowing for fruitful comparison. The exhibition concludes with the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, an event that was pivotal for the distribution of Orientalist imagery, and the impact of its print sales on ISAC’s mission at the turn of the twentieth century.
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FROM THE EXHIBITION
[daguerreotype] images would surpass in fidelity and local color the work of our most skilled artists
Physicist Dominique François Jean Arago
This special exhibition is supported by ISAC Museum Visitors and ISAC Members.
This exhibition has been curated by Marc Maillot, and organized by the ISAC Museum: Susan Allison, Robert Bain, Denise Browning, Laura D’Alessandro, Anne Flannery, Helen McDonald, Kiersten Neumann, Josh Tulisiak, and Alison Whyte, with contribution from Carol Turchan.
This exhibition unites albums and prints from the collections of the ISAC Museum Archives, Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago Library Special Collections, and David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. Additional media and support have been provided by Northern Illinois University Libraries, Paul V. Galvin Library, Chicago History Museum, Princeton University Library, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, Getty Museum Collection, and Newberry Library. Special thanks are due to the ISAC Epigraphic Survey Director J. Brett McLain for his support with the Epigraphic Survey negatives and the Francis Frith and John Beasley Greene albums.
Additional thanks are due to Catherine Novotny Brehm (Advisory Council, ISAC), Jamie Vaught (Collections Manager, Photography and Media, Art Institute of Chicago), Grace Kubilius (Collections Manager, Collections and loans), Patti Gibbons (Head of Collection Management, Special Collections Research Center, UChicago Library), Tim Porter (Assistant Registrar, Smart Museum of Art) and Foy Scalf (Head of ISAC Research Archives).
