What 8,500 Pictures Are Worth

By PHILIP GEFTER @ New York Times
LAST year, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the more than 8,500 photographs in the Gilman Paper Company Collection - then arguably the most impressive private photography collection in existence - Malcolm Daniel, the museum's curator of photography, declared it "the most important thing" that had happened to his department in the history of the museum. "For at least the last 15 years, the acquisition of the Gilman collection has been our No. 1 priority and goal," he said.

And when the Museum of Modern Art acquired the Thomas Walther collection of high-modernist photography, in 2001, Peter Galassi, the Modern's chief curator of photography, said, "His collection splendidly demonstrates the importance of photographic modernism and simultaneously encourages us to rewrite its history."

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