The Rubin Collection

The Rubin Collection, curated by Dr. Melvin and Lorna Rubin over sixty years, represents an important aggregation of more than 2,500 photographic works from 300 artists. This predominantly American 20th-century collection spans a range of themes, media, and geographical contexts, and continues to grow in significance as photography evolves.

ARTISTS LISTED ALPHABETICALLY

Photographic Modernism

Housed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Rubin Collection encapsulates the Rubins’ deep-rooted admiration for modernist photography, from its early European origins and the work of California's Group f/64. The collection traces a journey through various approaches to photography. It includes vintage works by American photographers such as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Alma Lavenson, and Edward Weston.

Tapestry of Relationships

The collection was borne in the early ‘60s from Dr. Rubin’s friendship with fellow University of Florida professor Jerry Uelsmann and maintains an unparalleled set of Uelsmann’s early work. In the late ‘70s the Rubins became close with Anne and Jacques Baruch, art importers in Chicago who gained notoriety for smuggling Czech artwork out from behind the Iron Curtain. Their influence led to the inclusion of many Czech photographers and printmakers. Nearly a quarter of the photographic collection is Czech.

In addition, a childhood friend of Dr. Rubin's, Ursula Gropper, had become a key figure in the Bay Area photographic art scene; she introduced Rubin to artists such as Stackpole, Callahan, Misrach, and Bernhard. And finally, a nearly four-decade partnership with Bay Area dealer Michael Shapiro, renowned for his expertise in rare photographic prints, shaped the collection's current configuration.

Scope and Themes

Incorporating street and photojournalism, the collection showcases mid-twentieth-century reflections on European and American urban life around WWII. Also, it hosts portfolios of Jewish life in Europe before the war, underlining Dr. Rubin's personal affinity for this theme, enriched by his friendship with Roman Vishniac.

Portraiture features heavily in the collection, with iconic works from Newman, Karsh, Cartier-Bresson, and Penn; it also includes a specialized subset of portraits of Albert Einstein. Classical representations of flowers, nudes, architecture, landscapes, and still lifes, along with diverse print types, encapsulate the Rubins’ admiration for aesthetics, minimalism, and craftsmanship.

Significance and Legacy

Ultimately, the Rubin Collection transcends the confines of an historical photographic anthology. It reflects Dr. Rubin's unique aesthetic preferences: the influence of his youth in San Francisco, being the child of immigrants, his career as an educator and physician. The collection celebrates the evolution of the creative medium— a unique slice through 20th-century history, craft, and humanity. Amidst the digital and AI era, the Rubin Collection offers a significant link to the relevance and profundity of photography, and the importance of the print as well as the image.

For more than two decades, the Harn Museum of Art (Gainesville, FL) at the University of Florida utilized the Rubin Collection for thematic exhibits, providing curated explorations into its considerable depth and diversity.

• Modern Czech Photography: Selective Visions (Aug-Oct 1994)

• Ephemeral Moments: Photography of Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson (Feb-June 1997)

• The Prophetic Photographs of Roman Vishniac: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Before the Holocaust (Nov-March 2000)

• Sebastiao Salgado: Global Convulsion (June-Sept 2003)

• City Streets: Photographs of American Life (Dec-Feb 2004)

• Photographic Formalities: From Ansel Adams to Weegee (Sept-Jan 2008)

• The Modern Impulse: Photography from Europe and America Between the Wars (Oct-Jan 2013)

Themes and Artists

• Czech Modernism

  • Funke, Drtikol, Wiskovsky, Sudek, Lauschmann, Rössler, Berka, Reichman, Lehovec, Ehm, Hak, Brok, Feyfar, Ludwig, Tmej, Chochola, Medkova, Saudek, Koudelka, Kolář, Baňka, Reich, Hanke, Štreit, Bárta, Švolík, Župník

• Landscapes & Nature

  • Adams, Kenna, Meyorwitz, Misrach, Salgado, Weston, Alsup, Barnbaum, Gibson, Lardizabal, Mulligan, Sexton, Smith, Wimberley, Worth

• WWII & the Forties

  • Levitt, Stoumen, Weegee, Bubley, Schwartz, Yavno, Bristol, Stackpole

• Group F/64

  • Adams, Weston, Cunningham, Anikeeff, Edwards, Lavenson, Noskowiak, Swift, Van Dyke

• Portraits (of artists and Einstein in particular):

  • Karsh, Newman, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Penn

• The Jewish Experience from Roman Vishniac

• Photojournalism & Street

  • Bourke-White, Cartier-Bresson, Canner, Doisneau, Eisenstaedt, Erwitt, Evans, Frank, Gutmann, Jones, Natchtwey, Salgado, Stettner, Wolcott, Zimbel

• Nude

  • Brandt, Callahan, Cunningham, Dater, Dupain, Izu, Kertesz, Miller, Weston, Bullock, Clergue, Saudek, Hosoe, Schatz, Bernhard, Uelsmann

• Women

  • Cunningham, Abbott, Kanaga, Anikeef, Lavenson, Bing, Morgan, Noskowiak, Bourke-White, Levitt, Bubley, Stone, Streetman, Dater, Marino, Connor, Butler, Solyagua, Taylor

• Abstractions and Surreal

  • Uelsmann, White, Haas, Caponigro, Callahan, Siskind

Since 2022, The Collection has been used to illustrate a number of in-person workshops held by the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops:

• Perfecting Your Craft: Lightroom and Printmaking

• with Jean Miele - Summer 2022

• Photographic Haiku in Santa Fe

  with M. H. Rubin - Summer 2022, 2023

• The New Mexico Landscape and Lightroom

  with Jean Miele - July 17 – 21, 2023

• The Hand-Colored Photographic Print

  with Kate Breakey - July 31 – August 4, 2023