Collectors, artists, and gallerists from around the country are donating more than 150 works to the Museum in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker’s 39-year tenure as curator of photography.

In Appreciation: Gifts in Honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker features a selection of these photographs. Among the highlights are Richard Avedon’s 1955 Dovima with Elephants; Nan Goldin’s multimedia Ballad of Sexual Dependency from the 1980s; a unique Man Ray photomontage from about 1926; a photograph by the medium’s inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot, from 1840—now the earliest firmly dated photograph in the MFAH collection; and a luminous 1949 nighttime view of the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris, by Brassaï.

Other notable images include Gilbert and George's 45-panel Base from 2005; Harlem street scenes and portraits by Dawoud Bey from the 1980s; and photographs by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Josef Koudelka, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ray Metzker, and Irving Penn.

Hired in 1976 to establish a department of photography at the MFAH, Tucker arrived to a collection of only 141 images. Her passion led to path-breaking exhibitions and publications that made the MFAH a leader in the field. Today, the collection stands at more than 30,000 works by some 4,000 artists, created on all seven continents. Tucker has organized or co-organized more than 40 exhibitions, authored dozens of publications, and acquired the work of many leading 20th- and 21st-century photographers. She retires on June 30, 2015.