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Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book, The History of Photography, remains one of the most significant accounts in the field and has become a classic photographic history textbook. Newhall was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his accomplishments in the study of photographic history.
Although Newhall wanted to study film and photography in college, the subjects were not taught as separate disciplines when he enrolled at Harvard University. Instead, he chose to study art history and museum studies.
While at Harvard, Newhall was greatly influenced by his instructor Paul J. Sachs. In 1932, after receiving his master's degree from Harvard, Sachs helped Newhall obtain a position as a lecturer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia.
Newhall continued his graduate studies at the Institute of Art and Archaeology of the University of Paris and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. He worked briefly for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Massachusetts branch of the Public Works Administration. Due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, Newhall was not able to devote himself to his doctoral studies and eventually accepted a position at the Museum of Modern Art as a stable source of income.
In 1940, Newhall became the first curator of MoMA's photography department and decisively began collecting for the Museum,Newhall, Focus, p. 64 starting with the work of László Moholy-Nagy. Newhall married Nancy Newhall, a notable photography critic who worked in his place as curator at MoMA during his service in World War II. Newhall served as a photo-interpreter of aerial photographs taken over enemy territory in Italy and North Africa. He held the rank of First Lieutenant and later returned to the United States to train others.
In 1946, Newhall was invited by Josef Albers to lecture on the history of photography at Black Mountain College. He resigned from MoMA in 1947 after discovering that Edward Steichen was to direct the photography department, while Newhall was to remain as curator. However, he agreed to contribute an introduction to the MoMA exhibition catalog for Henri Cartier-Bresson.
From 1948 to 1958, Newhall served as curator of the George Eastman Museum, housed in the former residence of George Eastman in Rochester, New York. He then became its director, a position he held until 1971. While at the Eastman Museum, Newhall was responsible for amassing one of the largest photographic collections in the world.
He was joined there by Minor White, who took over as editor of Image, the magazine Newhall founded at the Museum. Image was later passed on to Nathan Lyons, who transformed it into a respected quarterly.
Newhall also published several books through the Museum, including Edward Weston's Daybooks (co-published with Horizon Press), Photographers on Photography (edited by Lyons), and works on Aaron Siskind. He remained an honorary trustee of the Eastman Museum until his death.
After retiring from the George Eastman Museum, he was appointed professor at the University of New Mexico in 1972 and was named Professor Emeritus in 1984.
Beaumont Newhall died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on February 26, 1993. He was predeceased by his wife, Nancy, who died on July 7, 1974, from injuries sustained when she was struck by a falling tree on the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park.
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