Peter Bunnell

Peter Curtis Bunnell was born on October 25, 1937, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He received an undergraduate degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied with photographer Minor White, and an M.F.A. from Ohio University, He then went on to receive an M.A. degree in art history from Yale University, and later became an associate in the Alfred Stieglitz Archive at the university. ==Life and career==

Bunnell joined the Museum of Modern Art staff in New York in 1966, on a temporary assignment to review and catalogue its collection of photographs, and in 1968 became Associate Curator of the Department of Photography. In 1970, he was named the Curator of the Department of Photography at the Museum. That same year he curated a show at the museum called Photography into Sculpture, the first comprehensive survey of photographically formed images used in a sculptural manner. The show has been called "one of the great contributions to the history of photography" due to its intent to redefine photography in a new spatial concept. From 1973 to 1978 Bunnell was also the Director of the Princeton University Art Museum, He later served as Curator of the Minor White Archive and as Curator of Photography at Princeton University Art Museum. In 2002, Bunnell retired from his post at Princeton. That same year the U.S. Postal Service issued a set of postage stamps called Masters of American Photography featuring photographers and images selected by Bunnell. ==Death==

Bunnell died on September 20, 2021, in Princeton, New Jersey, following a lengthy illness. He was 83. ==Collection==

In April 2023 Phillips New York auctioned 38 lots entitled A REVERENCE FOR BEAUTY: THE PETER C. BUNNELL COLLECTION. The "remarkable selection of photographs" offered the auction sale's proceeds will be distributed to six institutions with whom Bunnell was associated — Rochester Institute of Technology, Ohio University, Yale University, The George Eastman Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and Princeton University Art Museum — to establish endowments to support the study of photographic history. Bunnell's print of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) was the highest-priced photograph of the auction for an above-estimate $381,000. Bunnell was gifted the large format print from Adams in August 1959 after they had become friends. Diane Arbus's Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 sold for $215,900, and a selection by Edward Steichen brought $53,340 - just shy of triple the high estimate. Garry Winogrand's ''World's Fair, New York City'' (1964) for $40,640. Also represented in his personal collection were works by Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and of course, his mentor Minor White. ==Publications==

• Jerry N. Uelsmann: An Aperture Monograph (1970) • Barbara Morgan (1972) • Nonsilver Printing Processes: Four Selections 1886–1927 (1973) • Harry Callahan (1978) • Altered Landscapes: The Photographs of John Pfahl (1981) • Edward Weston on Photography (1983) • Clarence H. White: The Reverence for Beauty (1986) • Minor White: The Eye That Shapes (1989) • A Photographic Vision: Pictorial Photography 1889-1923 (1980) • Emmet Gowin: Photographs 1966–1983 (1983) • EW:100. Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston (1986) • Light Years: The Friends of Photography 1967-1985 (1987) • Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs from the Collection of Georgia O’Keeffe (1993) ISBN • Degrees of Guidance: Essays on Twentieth-Century American Photography (1993) • Ruth Bernhard: The Collection of Ginny Williams (1993) • Photography at Princeton: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Collecting and Teaching the History of Photography (1998) • Edward Ranney Photographs: The John B. Elliott Collection (2003) • Michael Kenna: A Twenty Year Retrospective (2003) • Inside the Photograph: Writings on Twentieth-Century Photography (2006) • Eye Mind Spirit: The Enduring Legacy of Minor White (2009) • Walter Chappell: Eternal Impermanence (2013) ==Exhibitions curated==