ITHACA, N.Y.- The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University presents Innovation/Imagination: 50 Years of Polaroid Photography, on view through October 22. The Polaroid Collections prized exhibit of fine art photography is a treasure to behold. The company’s legacy of museum quality Polaroid instant photographs captures the history and unlimited potential of photography as it revolutionized society.

Celebrating Polaroid’s scientific and artistic achievement, the richly endowed exhibit of over 80 photographs is featured at Cornell University ’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art through October 22, 2006.

“Innovation/Imagination : 50 Years of Polaroid Photography 1947-1997” showcases the eclectic works of more than 50 internationally famous artists including Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Judy Dater, Robert Mapplethorpe, and David Hockney. And a favorite of animal lovers, William Wegman’s elegant dog Man Ray is celebrated in his humorous poses.

Surprises include computer generated, giant size Polaroid instant 20x24-inch color images from a 5-foot camera weighing 235 pounds. Very rare, only six Polaroid 20x24-inch cameras exist, delivering large format photos in just 70 seconds.

Polaroid 20x24 photographs are permanently displayed in London ’s Victoria and Albert Museum , the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris , Amsterdam ’s Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Polaroid’s 20x24 cameras are available for rental at studios in New York City and San Francisco.

History buffs will discover early black-and-white photographs from Polaroid Land Film Type 41. Also included are works created with Polaroid Positive/Negative film Type 665. The exhibit’s subjects range from celebrity portraits to abstract images and awe inspiring landscapes by the legendary Ansel Adams.

A capsule of history reveals that in 1944 the idea of an instant photograph was born. Scientist Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid Corporation, and his young daughter were in New Mexico on vacation. Land photographed his daughter and she promptly asked him why she could not see the picture immediately. Voila! Being a genius inventor, within one hour Land visualized the requirements for a camera and the chemistry of instant film. It would be another three years before the first instant sepia film was introduced to the world in Boston .

From the start, Polaroid Corporation hired artists to experiment with its cameras and film. Land stated, “The purpose of inventing instant photography was essentially aesthetic – to make available a new medium of _expression to numerous individuals who have an artistic interest in the world around them. The process must be concealed from – nonexistent for the photographer who, by definition needs to think of the art in taking and not in making photographs.”

Talented artists working with Polaroid products have contributed photographs to The Polaroid Collections, now burgeoning with more than 20,000 fine art images. The current exhibit, “Innovation/Imagination: 50 Years of Polaroid Photography” features selections from The Polaroid Collections.