The Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

Allan Chasanoff relishes pictures that puzzle him, and he wants others to enjoy these surprises. He built his collection of 20th-century photographs by questioning what occurs when the camera “captures” the real world but the resulting image creates confusion rather than clarity, challenging photography's reputation as a dependable document. In 1991, the New York-based collector donated nearly 1,000 works to the MFAH by photographers ranging from Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, and Joel Peter Witkin to relatively unknown artists.