The Vanguard Houston Center for Photgraphy
The start of 2026 marked the Houston Center for Photography’s 45th anniversary. As Executive Director and Curator, curating the group exhibition THE VANGUARD was deeply personal and especially timely. I joined HCP in 2023, having known the organization since my time in graduate school (1998–2000). First through its former publication SPOT, and later by following the curatorial careers of previous Executive Directors and Curators Madeline Yale Preston and Bevin Bering Dubrowski, HCP was on my radar long before I came to my present stewardship of it.
Not only were many of HCP’s founding members women, but as a member-run organization, they had meaningful voices in shaping the center’s early direction. Add to this the extraordinary leadership of the esteemed Anne Wilkes Tucker, who was deeply involved in curatorial decisions during HCP’s earliest years, and it is clear why HCP became a pioneer among photo centers.
HCP was instrumental in introducing me to a wide array of women photographers at a time when my formal education had overlooked them. In 2001, as HCP was turning 20, I found myself on the precipice of my professional career in academia and realized this was the pivotal moment for me to play a part in rectifying these institutional erasures. By ensuring that students and emerging artists had the opportunity to encounter and be inspired by extraordinary women in the field of photography, HCP’s enduring legacy moved through me long before I ever set foot in Houston. Years later, I would come to understand how profoundly that legacy has shaped my own trajectory, eventually leading me to HCP.
What better way to celebrate this legacy and mark our 45th anniversary than by acknowledging the very people who started it all—both for HCP and for myself. Curating THE VANGUARD has been a rich journey through HCP’s archives. After sifting through hundreds of women exhibited during the center’s first 20 years, I ultimately selected 20 artists for the exhibition. Each woman falls into one of three curatorial categories: artists I discovered in the early 2000s thanks to HCP, artists with whom I have had the honor of sharing a curatorial relationship, and artists I encountered upon arriving in Houston whom I regretted not knowing sooner.
With these categories in mind, I have paired each work with a personal anecdote on extended wall labels, inviting viewers to engage with both the artists’ practices and my own journey with HCP.
THE VANGUARD includes: Yolanda Andrade, Bennie Flores Ansell, Deborah Bay, Gay Block, Carol Crow, Dornith Doherty, Susan Dunkerley Maguire, Melanie Friend, Susan kae Grant, Mary Margaret Hansen / Patsy Cravens, Graciela Iturbide, Priya Kambli, Jean Karotkin, An-My Lê, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Kenda North, Aline Smithson, Maggie Taylor, Wendy Watriss, and Carrie Mae Weems.
March 12 - May 24, 2026
