NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art is presenting Time Travelers: Photographs from the Thayle Threenhill Collection, an exhibition of works from a monumental gift of photographs made in 2019 to the Museum by Robert F. Greenhill in memory of his wife, Gayle Greenhill (1936–2017). A supporter of the Museum’s Department of Photography for more than two decades, Mrs. Greenhill served on MoMA’s Committee on Photography from 1992 to 2013. On view from October 31, 2025, to February 2, 2026, the exhibition honors her enduring commitment to the medium and showcases a selection of more than 50 photographs from the transformative gift of several hundred works by more than 100 identified photographers and many more unknown photographers. Time Travelers: Photographs from the Gayle Greenhill Collection is organized by Lucy Gallun, Curator, with Samuel Allen, Curatorial Assistant, and Kaitlin Booher, former Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow, Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography.
Drawn from a collection that spans the history of photography—from the medium’s earliest years to the present—Time Travelers invites extended contemplation of these images and the stories they carry. Rather than presenting works chronologically or thematically, the exhibition emphasizes each object’s potential to function as a portal to another world— whether the world of the photographer, or one constructed entirely within the boundaries of a photographic print.
The exhibition brings together works reflecting a diverse array of styles, processes, and approaches, with some photographs made as expressions of artistic intent and others created for scientific purposes or to commemorate significant events. Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron and Edward Steichen mark early efforts to assert the medium as a means of artistic creation, a tradition carried forward by artists including Manuel Álvarez Bravo, William Eggleston, and Cindy Sherman. Works by Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Harold Eugene Edgerton, and Jan Groover explore photography’s capacity to reveal modes of vision foreign to the human eye. Expeditions into unfamiliar realms are recorded in Herbert George Ponting’s Antarctic landscapes and Hiro’s image of the Apollo 11 launch.
Still lifes by Karl Blossfeldt, Imogen Cunningham, and Irving Penn uncover profound significance in the everyday. Portraits produced under varied circumstances—including David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson’s social documentary; an example from Alfred Stieglitz’s decades-long composite portrait of artist Georgia O’Keeffe; Emmet Gowin’s intimate depiction of his wife, Edith; and Lucas Samaras’s manipulated Polaroid self- portraits—reveal the complexities of photographing the self and others.
Featuring both iconic and lesser-known images, and covering a time period extending from William Henry Fox Talbot’s experiments with nascent photographic technology in the mid- 19th century to JoAnn Verburg’s immersive depictions of the natural landscape in the early 21st century, Time Travelers reflects Mrs. Greenhill’s wide ranging curiosity about photography. This presentation marks the first public viewing of works from the Gayle Greenhill Collection and underscores the lasting impact on the Museum’s collection of Mr. Greenhill’s gift, which also established the Gayle Greenhill Endowment Fund to support future exhibitions and acquisitions by MoMA’s Department of Photography.
“This exhibition and its accompanying publication reflect the spirit of curiosity and exploration that defined Gayle Greenhill’s passion for photography,” remarked Gallun. “We are honored to offer audiences different photographic experiences—and the encouragement to travel among them—in the first public presentation of the remarkable gift made by Robert F. Greenhill in Gayle’s memory. The collection is rich with iconic works and unexpected discoveries, and it makes a lasting contribution to the Museum’s photography program—one that will continue to inspire future generations.”
Time Travelers: Photographs from the Gayle Greenhill Collection is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue that features 44 full-page plates and more than 50 contextualizing images. An introduction by Lucy Gallun and five focused essays by Samuel Allen, Kaitlin Booher, Lee Ann Daffner, Gallun, and Rachel Rosin invite extended contemplation of individual photographs. Shorter texts by Allen, Booher, and Casey Li accompany each of the remaining plates, illuminating the ideas, processes, and circumstances behind these images. 136 pages, 100 color illustrations. Hardcover, $45. ISBN: 978-1-63345-182-7.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and available at MoMA stores and online at store.moma.org. Distributed to the trade through ARTBOOK|D.A.P. in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson in the rest of the world.
Included in the full gift of photographs from the Gayle Greenhill Collection are many rare and important works by Edward Steichen, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Karl Blossfeldt, Chuck Close, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Jan Groover, André Kertész, Robert Mapplethorpe, László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Charles Sheeler, Cindy Sherman, JoAnn Verburg, and Edward Weston. In addition to masterworks by established figures, the Greenhills collected a wide variety of documentary and press photography, much of it unattributed. These include numerous photographs taken during World War II—some by Steichen’s photography corps—and the Korean and Vietnam wars. The Greenhills had a keen interest in exploration, collecting extensively in the areas of early aviation, including photographs of the Wright Brothers’ foundational experiments (1903–11), and the golden age of Antarctic exploration (1910–15). A portion of this gift will form the Gayle Greenhill Collection of photographs at the Museum, while the remainder of the works will be sold to establish the Gayle Greenhill Endowment Fund to support future MoMA photography exhibitions and acquisitions.
Gayle Greenhill began to collect photographs in the early 1980s, and during the decades that followed she assembled a body of work that spans the history of the medium. She was a trustee of the International Center of Photography from 1985 to 2016, serving as chair of the board from 2001 to 2008. At MoMA, she became a member of the Fellows of Photography in 1989, and she served on the Committee on Photography from 1992 until 2013. In addition to the gift made in her memory in 2019, during her lifetime she and Robert F. Greenhill generously supported numerous acquisitions in response to strategic priorities established by the Department of Photography, including 44 inventive and unique photographs, photo collages, and video works by Lucas Samaras, a number of rare, early Conceptual works by William Wegman, and 28 prints from Robert Frank’s landmark series The Americans. Gayle was born in 1936 in San Antonio, Texas, and met her future husband, Robert, while a student at Vassar College. They married in 1958 and went on to have three children and eight grandchildren. Gayle and Robert’s partnership embraced all aspects of their life together, including Gayle’s activities as a collector. In 2019 Robert entrusted the collection to MoMA as a way of honoring her longstanding commitment to the institution, as well as her impact on the field of photography at large.
