NEW YORK, March 22 (UPI) -- New York's Metropolitan museum has announced plans to exhibit selected photographs from the recently acquired 8,500-item Gilman Paper Company Collection.
Spokesman Harold Holzer said only the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has holdings that compare to the enriched Metropolitan Museum, which now has the world's most pre-eminent 19th century collections.
Acquisition of photographs collected by the late paper executive Howard Gilman has been a priority for the Met for the past 15 years, he said, noting New York's Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery also had been interested in the collection.
The photo trove ranges from the earliest prints by pioneer British photographer William Henry Fox Talbot and American daguerreotypes to pictures by such 20th century lens masters as Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Man Ray. It includes Lewis Carroll's photographs of children, a rare photo of Abraham Lincoln at 51 taken in Springfield, Ill., and Matthew Brady studies of prominent Civil War-era politicians.
Holzer declined to say how much was a gift of the Gilman Foundation and how much was purchased or to estimate the value of the collection, which has been reported to be worth as much as $100 million.
