Reflecting various approaches and motivations, their work ranges from a focus on personal narratives and recording transnational histories, to an exploration of experimental practices. The assortment is particularly rich in works relationship from the time of photography’s invention in England and France in the late 1830s and early 1840s. International in scope, it encompasses substantial holdings by a number of the most significant masters of the 20th century lively in Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, and Africa. Notable among artists represented are William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Carleton Watkins, Walker Evans, August Sander, and Robert Mapplethorpe. The collection can be the only curatorial area in the Museum that extends into the twenty-first century with modern acquisitions. In pictures, symmetry usually means creating a picture that may be divided into two equal components that are mirror images of one another.

The technique has been much extended by …