![Unknown Artist, American, View of Cologne, 1945, Gelatin silver print, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew from The Ludmila Dandrew and Chitranee Drapkin Collection, 2012.28.481](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 520"/%3E "Unknown Artist, American, View of Cologne, 1945, Gelatin silver print, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew from The Ludmila Dandrew and Chitranee Drapkin Collection, 2012.28.481")
ST. PETERSBURG — “A Terrible Beauty: Photographers Amid Chaos,” a new exhibition, is now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg.
Taking its title from William Butler Yeats’ poem “Easter, 1916,” the exhibition explores how artists across time have confronted trauma, strife, and destruction to make sense of a chaotic world. Spanning the history of the photographic medium, the works on display stretch from harrowing images of the American Civil War to modern collective traumas, including the devastating 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. “A Terrible Beauty” forces viewers to confront a profound question: Can a photographer ever truly record history without bias, or does the lens inherently transform tragedy into art?
“It is always fascinating to think about what inspired an artist to pick up a camera,” said Hazel and William Hough Chief Curator Stanton Thomas. “These artists were compelled to confront horrors — some natural disasters, some human-made — and find a way to not only record what they saw, but also approach painful subjects with understanding and composure.”
The exhibition draws heavily upon the Museum of Fine Arts’ extraordinarily rich permanent holdings of photography, alongside significant loans from the remarkable collection of long-time museum donors Robert and Chitranee Drapkin. Among the highlights are iconic historical moments frozen in time, including the stunning 1937 gelatin silver print of the “Hindenburg Disaster” by Joe Rosenthal and Steve McCurry’s striking 1993 “Dust Storm, Rajasthan, India.” By negotiating the tense boundary between raw documentary purpose and deliberate artistic expression, the featured photographers capture the ultimate gravity of unsettling and complex subjects.
As the first art museum in St. Petersburg, the Museum of Fine Arts serves as the cultural anchor of a vibrant arts city, uniting a diverse community of artists, residents, and international visitors. The museum’s global collection, spanning nearly 5,000 years, acts as a catalyst for connection and conversation.
![Joe/Wide World Photo Rosenthal, American, LZ 129 HINDENBURG DISASTER LAKEHURST, N.J., c. 1937, Gelatin silver print, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew from The Ludmila Dandrew and Chitranee Drapkin Collection, 2012.28.386](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 750"/%3E "Joe/Wide World Photo Rosenthal, American, LZ 129 HINDENBURG DISASTER LAKEHURST, N.J., c. 1937, Gelatin silver print, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew from The Ludmila Dandrew and Chitranee Drapkin Collection, 2012.28.386")
Within the museum’s holdings are exemplary works by Georgia O’Keeffe, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Rodin, Kehinde Wiley, and Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun. The museum also houses one of the largest and most well-respected photography collections in the Southeast, featuring iconic visionaries such as Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen, Julia Margaret Cameron, Carrie Mae Weems, James Van Der Zee, and Aaron Siskind.
For information, visit mfastpete.org.