PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania is presenting A View of One’s Own—Three Women Photographers in Rome: Esther Boise Van Deman, Georgina Masson, Jeannette Montgomery Barron. Organized last fall by the American Academy in Rome (AAR), the exhibition features photographs by American women in Rome from three different generations, documenting the Eternal City and its urban transformation over more than a century, from the Belle Époque to today. The photographs also tracks the emergence of photography as an independent medium—evolving from a documentary aid to a vehicle for subjective, even gendered expression in the digital age. The Arthur Ross Gallery is the exclusive U.S. venue for this exhibition.

ARG’s Director Lynn Marsden-Atlass says: “The Arthur Ross Gallery is very pleased to collaborate with the American Academy in Rome to present for the first time in the U.S. these rare and insightful photographs by three groundbreaking women photographers.”

Drawn from the Photographic Archive of the American Academy in Rome, A View of One’s Own features three American protagonists: archaeologist Esther Boise Van Deman, who photographed Rome and its surroundings in the early 1900s; Georgina Masson, author of the classic guidebook, The Companion Guide to Rome, that has shaped foreigners’ experiences of Rome since the 1950s; and contemporary photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron, whose images capture glimpses of Rome as seen by an American living abroad in the Eternal City, folding them into a wandering, meditative reverie. Seen in succession against a photographic landscape of Rome defined for the most part by men, the images posit another way of seeing the city’s history. Taken by female flâneurs, empirical observations of bricks and mortar progressively dissolve into pure, evanescent experience.

“The work of these three photographers reflects different periods in the evolution of the modern city of Rome and the history of photography itself,” said Mark Robbins, President of the American Academy in Rome. “The presentation at the Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania brings these images to new audiences and underscores the continuing impact of the city of Rome in our conception of the past and the future.”

A View of One’s Own is curated by Lindsay Harris, Peter Benson Miller, and Angela Piga, and is accompanied by a comprehensive, fully illustrated catalogue, published by AAR, with essays by Robbins, André Aciman, and the curators. At the Arthur Ross Gallery, the exhibition was organized by Lynn Marsden-Atlass, and will be accompanied by a variety of related programming.