Fact Sheet “No Mountains in the Way”
Exhibition
“No Mountains in the Way: Photographs from the Kansas Documentary Survey, 1974”
Feb. 26 – July 31, 2016
Where
American Art Museum, Eighth and F streets N.W. Graphic Arts galleries, second floor
Description
In the 1970s, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) conceived a series of photo survey projects, inspired by the epic documentary photography program undertaken by the federal government in the 1930s and 1940s. From 1935 to 1944, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) under leader Roy Stryker sent some of the era’s most talented photographers on a mission to capture rural poverty during the Great Depression.
In 1974, with a grant of $5,000 from the NEA, “No Mountains in the Way” was organized by Jim Enyeart, then curator of photography at the University of Kansas Museum of Art. He and Kansas natives Terry Evans and Larry Schwarm—all artists who have attained considerable achievement in the intervening decades—travelled the state, photographing whatever struck them as representative. Each worked on an assigned theme. Enyeart focused on buildings, Evans on people and Schwarm on the landscape. Their collective visions combined to poetically reflect place, culture and custom in Kansas. The exhibition and catalog were presented in 1975.
“No Mountains in the Way” was the prototype for a larger, national survey initiated by the NEA during the American Bicentennial celebration. From 1976 to 1981, the agency awarded Documentary Survey grants to more than 100 regional photographers. Forty years later, it remains an important document of American photography. It is the record of a particular American place. It is also the record of a time when NEA support shaped a generation of photographers, whose surveys combined into a national portrait. The current installation of 63 vintage prints from this survey of 120 photographs, are all works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection. These photographs were presented in 2015 at the Wichita Art Museum to celebrate the 40th anniversary of this important project of documentary photography in Kansas.
Credit
“No Mountains in the Way” is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Bernie Stadiem Endowment Fund supported this installation.
# # #
About the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is the flagship museum in the United States for American art and craft. It is home to one of the most significant and inclusive collections of American art in the world. The museum’s main building, located at Eighth and G streets N.W., is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. The museum’s Renwick Gallery, a branch museum dedicated to contemporary craft, is located on Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W. and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Check online for current hours and admission information. Admission is free. Follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Smithsonian information: (202) 633-1000. Museum information (recorded): (202) 633-7970. Website: americanart.si.edu.
