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Closed · Closed 23 Aug 2026

Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography

The Art Institute of Chicago — Gift of David Vestal

Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography was on view at National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States, from May 23, 2026 to August 23, 2026.

Last verified August 15, 2026 · Official source ↗

The first exhibition to explore photography's relationship with resource extraction, comprising approximately 150 photographs tracing how photographers captured the processes and impacts of the extraction of minerals, coal, and fossil fuels, from 19th-century Gold Rush daguerreotypes to contemporary large-scale imagery.

Venue

  1. National Gallery of Art
    Washington, D.C., United States · May 23 – August 23, 2026
    Closed 23 Aug

Images

A close group portrait of eight miners and boys pressed shoulder to shoulder, wearing peaked caps fitted with lamps, their faces and clothes dark with coal dust as they look at the camera.

Lewis Wickes Hine, Breaker Boys in Pennsylvania Coal Mine, 1920

The Art Institute of Chicago — Gift of David Vestal · Source ↗

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