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Tuesday 10am - 4:30am Wednesday 10am - 4:30am Thursday 10am - 4:30am Friday 10am - 4:30pm Saturday 10am - 4:30pm

Center for Creative Photography

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Tucson, AZ
Center for Creative Photography

A research institution devoted to preserving the history of photography, offering free exhibitions.

The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, is recognized as one of the world's finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. The Center opened in 1975, following a meeting between the University President John Schaefer and Ansel Adams. Beginning with the archives of five living master photographers—Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Si

skind, and Frederick Sommer—the collection has grown to include 239 archival collections, and more than 90,000 works by over 2,200 photographers.

09/01/2026

This Thursday, September 3, join us in celebrating the Center for Creative Photography's newest exhibition, "Animality: 100 Years of Photographs"

SNAP! (A Social Night of Art and Photography) will begin with a social hour, followed by a conversation featuring Professors Netzin G. Steklis and H. Dieter Steklis, faculty in the University of Arizona School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences Arizona College of Agriculture, Life & Environmental Sciences and CCP Chief Curator Becky Senf as they explore themes from "Animality: 100 Years of Photographs."

5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
SNAP! – Social Night of Art and Photography!
SNAP! Is a casual, social mixer in the CCP lobby prior to the evening’s conversation in the auditorium. There will be light fare, refreshments, and art-making activities inspired by the exhibition. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore photography’s long fascination with animals and create their own animal-inspired images.

6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Conversation: Animals, Humans, and the Photographic Imagination
Following the social hour, Dr. Netzin G. Steklis, Dr. H. Dieter Steklis, and Becky Senf will discuss the ways photography has shaped our understanding of animals over the past century. Drawing from works featured in Animality: 100 Years of Photographs, the conversation will explore how photographs influence perceptions of animal behavior, human-animal relationships, and the boundaries we draw between the human and nonhuman worlds. The evening will conclude with a playful animal-themed trivia quiz inspired by photographs from the exhibition.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP via the link in bio.

Image: Friedrich Seidenstücker, "Grevy-Zebra, 'Duplizität der Felle'," 1930s, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Purchase

08/26/2026

Today is International Dog Day! There are plenty of pictures of canine companions in “Animality: 100 Years of Photographs,” now on view through December 12 in the Alice Chaiten Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery. Admission is free for all, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Image: Ylla, "Dalmation," 1945-55, Ylla archive, AG 138, box 5. Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ © Pryor Dodge

08/21/2026

Join us Thursday, September 3, for a Social Night of Art and Photography — SNAP! — followed by a conversation featuring Professors Netzin G. Steklis and H. Dieter Steklis, faculty in the University of Arizona School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, and CCP Chief Curator Becky Senf as they explore themes from "Animality: 100 Years of Photographs."

5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
SNAP! – Social Night of Art and Photography!
SNAP! Is a casual, social mixer in the CCP lobby prior to the evening’s conversation in the auditorium. There will be light fare, refreshments, and art-making activities inspired by the exhibition. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore photography’s long fascination with animals and create their own animal-inspired images.

6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Conversation: Animals, Humans, and the Photographic Imagination
Following the social hour, Dr. Netzin G. Steklis, Dr. H. Dieter Steklis, and Becky Senf will discuss the ways photography has shaped our understanding of animals over the past century. Drawing from works featured in Animality: 100 Years of Photographs, the conversation will explore how photographs influence perceptions of animal behavior, human-animal relationships, and the boundaries we draw between the human and nonhuman worlds. The evening will conclude with a playful animal-themed trivia quiz inspired by photographs from the exhibition.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP via the link in bio.

08/19/2026

Today, August 19, is World Photography Day! Coincidentally, the Center for Creative Photography staff assembled this morning in front of the building for a group photo. The mission-driven work this team undertakes is vital to stewarding and providing access to a vast collection of some 120,000 photographs and millions of objects across 300+ archives that span the history of photography.

Our mission is to bring new and deeper meaning to the ever-changing and experimental field of photography through building, preserving, and sharing our unparalleled collection of archives and photographs. Situated on the campus of a public research university, we create, commission, and collaborate on original research and artistic expression that explores the evolution of the medium.

08/18/2026

The CCP will open at noon on Wednesday, August 19.

El CCP abrirá el miércoles 19 de agosto a mediodía.

08/08/2026

OPENING TODAY! Come and “meet” a menagerie of our furry, finned, and feathered friends depicted across more than 100 photographs and archival objects from the CCP’s collection. “Animality: 100 Years of Photographs”features a wide range of photographic formats, a diverse group of photographers, and all manner of animals across a century of time. Visitors of all ages are invited to explore and discover the ways photographs reveal aspects of the many kinds of relationships between humans and animals.

“Animality” was created in collaboration with seven University of Arizona University of Arizona W.A. Franke Honors College students—Dylan Brown, Maya Cervantes, Emma Charles, Charles Elliott, Emily Hogg, Emma Mireles, and Shay Parchem—who participated in professors Netzin and Dieter Steklis’s Fall 2025 course, Human and Animal Interrelationships. The interdisciplinary exhibition is organized around eleven thematic groupings, which together address human-animal interactions, human and animal expressions, and animal welfare.

08/06/2026

Center for Creative Photography Archive Acquisition Highlight

The Center for Creative Photography’s recent announcement of nine major archive acquisitions includes the archive of Stephen Marc (b. 1954).
Marc is a documentary and street photographer and digital montage artist known for long-term engagement with American social and cultural landscapes. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, his maximalist compositional style balances formal precision with empathetic observation, capturing community life, vernacular spaces, historical documentation, and regional identity.

Marc’s photography has been presented in major regional and national exhibitions that explore documentary practice and social themes, often accompanied by project catalogues and critical essays that situate his work within broader cultural contexts. Known for mentoring emerging photographers and shaping discourse on documentary methodology and ethical representation, Marc is Emeritus Professor of Art in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where he began teaching in 1998, after 20 years on the faculty of the Department of Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

Marc has published five photography books: “American/True Colors” (2020), “Passage on the Underground Railroad” (2009), “The Black Trans-Atlantic Experience: Street Life and Culture in Ghana, Jamaica, England, and the United States” (1992), “Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times: An American Journey Continues” (2023) and “Urban Notions” (1983).

His archive includes negatives, prints, correspondence, project notes, and teaching materials that reflect decades of practice rooted in thoughtful observation, contextual storytelling, and sustained commitment to place-based work.

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Read more about the Center’s recent archive acquisitions announcement via the link in bio.

08/03/2026

Center for Creative Photography Archive Acquisition Highlight

This April’s announcement of the Center for Creative Photography’s acquisition of nine significant photography archives included the archive of New Yorker Susan Wood (b. 1932).

Wood is an internationally published photographer celebrated for intimate and incisive images of cultural figures across art, fashion, and media. Mademoiselle named her as one of their 10 Women of the Year in 1961.
Wood’s photographs have appeared in such magazines as Vogue, Life, People, Sports Illustrated, and New York from the 1950s through the 1980s, including an iconic 1969 cover portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Look. She was the stills photographer on such films as Easy Rider (1969) and Modesty Blaise (1966). Her book “Women: Portraits 1960–2000” (2018) compiles striking images of such influential women as Diane von Furstenberg, Gloria Steinem, and Martha Stewart. Other books include “Ireland” (2018) and “Hampton Style” (1992, as co-author). The winner of Art Director and Clio awards, her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include “Wind Up” (Irish Georgian Society, Dublin, 2023) and “Susan Wood: In Time” (Laughlin Gallery, 2024).

Wood’s archive includes prints, negatives, slides, Polaroids, test prints, tear sheets, exhibition posters and postcards, and publications featuring her work, illuminating the evolution of editorial and advertising photography over the last 75 years.

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Read more about the Center’s recent archive acquisitions announcement via the link in bio.

07/31/2026

Center for Creative Photography Archive Acquisition Highlight

The CCP’s recent announcement of the acquisition of nine archives includes the archives of several notable photographers who have photographed extensively across the state of Arizona. Among those is the archive of Jack Dykinga (b. 1943).

Dykinga is an award–winning photojournalist and landscape photographer whose career bridges incisive social reporting and environmental advocacy. After winning the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of conditions at state-run mental hospitals in Illinois, Dykinga turned toward conservation photography with a focus on the American Southwest and its fragile ecosystems.

His work has been exhibited widely, including museum shows and gallery presentations that emphasize landscape, ecological threat, and preservation. Dykinga’s photographs are published in books with notable titles including “The Sonoran Desert” (1992), “Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau” (1996), “Jack Dykinga’s Arizona” (2004) and other monographs that document both dramatic terrain and urgent conservation issues. His images have appeared in “National Geographic, Arizona Highways,” and other major publications, significantly shaping public awareness of Southwestern landscapes and environmental stewardship.

Dykinga’s archive contains field photography, conservation project documentation, aerial imagery, and materials from decades of work at the intersection of art and advocacy.

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Read more about the Center’s recent archive acquisitions announcement via the link in bio.

07/29/2026

Center for Creative Photography Archive Acquisition Highlight

The Nathan Lyons Archive is one of nine recently acquired archives announced by the Center for Creative Photography earlier this year.

Nathan Lyons (1930–2016), whose multifaceted career began in the 1950s, was an influential American photographer, curator, educator, and author who helped shape the direction of contemporary photography.

As associate director and curator of photographs at George Eastman Museum in the 1960s, he advocated for photography as an art form. In 1969, Lyons founded the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, fostering photographic education and experimentation. His own photography, often shown as diptychs, is noted for its keen eye for graphic elements, attention to detail, and a searching approach to his subjects. With stark observational black-and-white images documenting human-made spaces and daily life, he often explored the complexities of built environments and the subtle ironies found in everyday scenes.

Lyon’s work was featured in major exhibitions including “The Photographer’s Eye” (1964) and “Mirrors and Windows” (1978) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Notable books that paired his photography with critical essays include “Notations in Passage” (1974) and “Riding 1st Class on the Titanic” (1999). His impact on the field was recognized with the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography in 2000.

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Read more about the Center’s recent archive acquisitions announcement via the link in bio.

Address

1030 N Olive Road
Tucson, AZ
85719

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 4:30am
Wednesday	10am - 4:30am
Thursday	10am - 4:30am
Friday	10am - 4:30pm
Saturday	10am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+15206217968

Website

http://ccp.arizona.edu/

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