John Szarkowski Named Director, Department of Photography, MoMA [press release, 1962]
Citation
Museum of Modern Art. [Press release announcing John Szarkowski as Director, Department of Photography, effective 1 July 1962.] New York: MoMA, 1962. MoMA Press Archive ref. MOMA_1962_0102_99.
Tier justification
Tier 1: MoMA institutional press release in the MoMA Press Archive (a primary institutional record). The URL points to the digitised press release in MoMA’s publicly accessible press archive. Text interior NOT read this session (PDF returned as binary).
Relevance
The official announcement of John Szarkowski’s appointment as Director of the MoMA Department of Photography, effective 1 July 1962, succeeding Edward Steichen. This document marks the institutional break between the Steichen era (1947–1962) and the Szarkowski era (1962–1991). Key for documenting the curatorial succession that shaped the post-Family of Man trajectory of MoMA’s photography program.
Key excerpts / pages
The following facts were confirmed via web search results (fetched 2026-04-30) that cite this press release or closely related MoMA archival materials:
- John Szarkowski named Director of the Department of Photography, effective 1 July 1962.
- Edward Steichen chose Szarkowski as his successor.
- Szarkowski was “in charge of the Edward Steichen Photography Center at the Museum as well as temporary loan shows of photography.”
- Two Guggenheim fellowships (confirmed via Wikipedia article on John Szarkowski, fetched 2026-04-30).
- Pre-MoMA career details (specifically: alleged teaching at the University of Buffalo and the University of Minnesota; alleged role as associate editor of the Walker Art Center’s Quarterly) appeared in unnamed web-search snippets but are NOT confirmed from any named source fetched this session and are NOT supported by the Wikipedia article on John Szarkowski (fetched 2026-04-30), which describes his pre-MoMA career as beginning at the Walker Art Center as a museum photographer with no mention of Buffalo, Minnesota, or a Walker Art Center Quarterly. These specific institutional and editorial-role claims are therefore retracted from this entry pending direct fetch of the press release PDF or Niven 1997, where they may or may not appear.
Interior text of the PDF was NOT read in this session (binary returned).
Notes
- PDF at the URL above fetched 2026-04-30; returned as binary image-based PDF; text not extractable in this session.
- Flagged
verified: falsebecause interior text not read. - The 1964 MoMA press release for The Photographer’s Eye (MOMA_1964_0030_1964-05.pdf) also identifies Szarkowski as “Director of the Department of Photography” — that PDF was also fetched as binary and text not extracted.
- Cross-references:
src-moma-1961-steichen-the-photographer,src-szarkowski-1964-photographers-eye-exh. - Secondary confirmation: Wikipedia article on John Szarkowski (fetched 2026-04-30) confirms appointment date of 1 July 1962.