Center for Creative Photography

Center for Creative Photography is a research museum and archive at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, devoted to the history of photography and the study of the medium through collections, exhibitions, publications, and teaching. Founded in 1975 with the involvement of Ansel Adams, the center was created to collect and preserve the archives of major photographers and to make those materials available for scholarship and public engagement. Its holdings include fine prints, negatives, contact sheets, manuscripts, correspondence, and other archival materials, and the center identifies its collection as encompassing more than 300 archival collections and over 120,000 works by more than 2,200 photographers. The center serves multiple audiences at once: university students and faculty, visiting researchers, artists, and the broader public. Its work centers on preserving photographic archives, mounting exhibitions, supporting research access in its study room, and advancing education in the history of photography. The institution is also a publishing and interpretive venue, producing books and exhibition-related scholarship tied to its collections. As part of the University of Arizona, it operates within a higher-education setting while functioning as a major destination for photographic research in the American Southwest. Concrete programs and access points anchor that mission. The center offers research fellowships that support scholars working with its collections in Tucson, and it presents exhibitions drawn from its holdings and from broader photographic history. Its founding collection included archives from photographers such as Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Frederick Sommer, and W. Eugene Smith, establishing the center early on as a significant repository for twentieth-century photography. That combination of archival stewardship, academic use, and public exhibition defines the Center for Creative Photography’s role within both the University of Arizona and the wider field of photographic scholarship.