The Legacy of Group f.64

California photography took a historic leap in 1932 in an Oakland home where eleven local photographers gathered to found Group f.64. The roster included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Imogen Cunningham—already famous in their day—and their aim was simple: to make photo­graphs that rivaled paintings.

“Pictorialist photographers emulated trends in painting,” explains Curator and Head of Photography Erin O’Toole, describing the predominant style of photography at the time. “The members of Group f.64 believed that for photography to be considered painting’s equal, they needed to do something different.” That meant celebrating the medium’s capacity to portray the world with clarity and accuracy, an effect best captured by the camera’s smallest aperture setting, called f.64. That same year, the DeYoung Museum hosted an exhibition of their work, securing their place in history.

The first three galleries of Around Group f.64: Legacies and Counterhistories of Bay Area Photography tell the story of the movement, from the soft-focus Pictorialism it rejected to works made in the 1930s by its members and their peers, including Dorothea Lange. The remaining five galleries explore the reverberations of Group f.64 through works primarily from SFMOMA’s collection, making a compelling argument that San Francisco is where photog­raphy history gets made. “The city of San Francisco was born around the same time as photography,” notes O’Toole. “Photographers flocked here during the Gold Rush, and there has been a vital community of people dedicated to the medium here ever since.”

One gallery dives into the importance of Carmel-by-the-Sea to Group f.64 as well as the surrounding politics through portraits of poet and activist Langston Hughes during his 1932 and 1934 residencies there. “Group f.64 has been described as being relatively apolitical,” says Assistant Curator of Photography Delphine Sims, “but in exploring this meeting point between Hughes and folks like Edward Weston, we see these artists did take part in political moments, particularly those concerning racial injustices and workers’ rights.” Another gallery spotlights the overlooked contributions of women photographers Sibyl Anikeef and founding Group f.64 member Sonya Noskowiak, who both depicted California landscapes and industry for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

The final three galleries present artists responding to or impacted by Group f.64’s legacy. For example, contempo­rary artist Tarrah Krajnak reengages with the work of Adams and Weston to consider who the field of art history has included or excluded. “Krajnak reimagines Weston’s famous portfolio of nudes by inserting her own Indigenous body into the work,” notes Assistant Curator of Photography Shana Lopes, “foregrounding the truism that photography has an afterlife beyond the original photographer’s intention and its historically specific moment.” And Janet Delaney, Jim Goldberg, Zig Jackson, and Catherine Opie are among the significant Bay Area photographers featured who emerged from the San Francisco Art Institute’s photography program, founded by Adams in 1945.

In the last gallery, the raucous realism of street photographs documenting San Francisco’s youth and subcultures from the 1970s to today represents a rebellious counter to the sublime stillness of Group f.64. Viewers may wonder how they got from Adams’s landscapes to Jim Jocoy and Chloe Sherman’s gritty images of their friends riding in cars or playing music. “They’re all students of photography,” says O’Toole. “If you look at their work in dialogue with the historical pictures, the contemporary artists were all aware of the legacies of photography in the Bay Area, and it is reflected in the work they make.”

Around Group f.64: Legacies and Counterhistories in Bay Area Photography is on view through July 2025.