Judy Glickman Lauder’s Photography Collection Brings Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and More to Southampton Arts Center

Presence, now on view at Southampton Arts Center through Sept. 27, brings together nearly 100 photographs by some of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.

Some photographs stop you because of who is in them. Others because of what was happening when the shutter clicked. And some simply capture a face, a street or a moment you can’t quite shake.

That power of photography is at the heart of Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder, now on view at Southampton Arts Center through Sept. 27.

The exhibition brings together approximately 100 photographs by about 50 artists from the collection of photographer, collector and philanthropist Judy Glickman Lauder. The lineup reads like a survey of some of the most important names in modern photography: Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Imogen Cunningham, Nan Goldin, Graciela Iturbide, Lotte Jacobi, Danny Lyon, Susan Meiselas, Gordon Parks, Joyce Tenneson and James Van Der Zee, among others.

But Presence is more than a collection of famous names.

Spanning portraits, landscapes, documentary photography, street scenes and images of historic events, the show looks at photography’s ability to preserve not only what happened, but something of what it felt like to be there.

The photographs move between the intimate and the monumental — from everyday life and personal relationships to the Great Depression, the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Together, they explore recurring themes of vulnerability, strength, love, grief, resilience and human connection.

Photographs as Proof of Presence

The exhibition takes its title from the idea of a photograph as evidence of presence: proof that a person, place or moment existed. Across eight thematic sections, Presence traces some of photography’s major movements and approaches, including Pictorialism, social documentary photography, Surrealism and street photography.

For Glickman Lauder, that connection to photography began early.

Her father, photographer Irving Bennett Ellis, photographed her from infancy through adulthood. Those images eventually became part of Kodak’s memorable “Turn Around” television commercial in the 1960s. In the 1970s, Glickman Lauder bought her first professional camera and began building a photographic career of her own.

Her work would take her from city streets to sites across Europe connected to the Holocaust, with photographs now held in the collections of institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her photography frequently explores human rights, social justice and the human condition — themes that also run throughout the collection she has assembled.

“I hope that visitors are moved by the emotional presence and lasting power of these images, just as I was,” Glickman Lauder said in announcing the exhibition. “Photography connects us to history while reminding us that we are a part of its ongoing story.”

Southampton is the first stop on the exhibition’s national tour. Following its run at Southampton Arts Center, Presence travels to Sarasota Art Museum in Florida, the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami.

The works in the exhibition are promised gifts to the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

For anyone who loves photography — or simply the extraordinary ability of a single image to hold a moment in time — Presence offers plenty worth lingering over.

If You Go

Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder
Through Sept. 27, 2026
Southampton Arts Center
Southampton, New York

Angela LaGreca

Editor, Co-Founder/Publisher

Angela LaGreca, Editor-in-chief and co-Founder/Publisher of Spark Hamptons, is a four-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, producer, writer and comedian/host. Her TV credits include NBC’s “Today,” ABC’s “The View,” and, most recently, the primetime cable news program “Cuomo” on NewsNation. On the East End, she was the Creative Director at LTV, VP Features/Events/Photo Editor at Dan’s Papers, and has performed at Guild Hall, Bay Street Theater and the WHBPAC. Her publishing career began at Modern Photography, where she was managing editor. LaGreca lives in Manhattan and East Hampton and can be reached at angelatvmedia@gmail.com and angela@sparkhamptons.com .