Peter Clenott

Even without uttering the word, hope is with us as an instinct, a feeling, an impulse, as an insistent human reflex in the face of negativism and despair. The photographs in this collection were assembled to make hope more than a reflex; in the face of these wonderful testaments to human optimism and nobility, our sense of hope manifests itself in all its marvelous power. A belief that we have value, than humanity has nobility, was the guiding principle in assembling these photographs. Focusing on images from the second half of the twentieth century, this collection includes work by some of the most distinguished photographs of our era (Among the photographers: Robert Adams, Gille Peress, Flor Garduno, Larry Sultan, Nicholas Nixon, Duane Michaels, Hiro, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Alex Webb, Joel Sternfeld, Nan Goldin, Joel Meyerowitz, Rosalind Solomon, Cindy Sherman). Here are photographs that record the innocent optimism of childhood as a mother combs her daughter's hair in preparation for her first communion, or children gather at an idyllic swimming hole. Others record hope at the great motivator, from the cosmic, in an extraordinary image of Apollo 11 blasting into space, to the individual, as a Mexican family gazes across the border as they await an opportunity to run to California. And here too is unforgettable evidence of hope in the most desperate of circumstances: a family resolutely gathers its personal belongings after a flood; a Rwandan tailor intently pursues his routine amidst a scene of utter devastation. And he see hope even in our biological essence, in Lennart Nilssons's astonishing photograph of a sperm meeting and egg. More than one hundred photographs have contributed to this compelling portrait of this thing, this urge, this hope that gets us out of bed in the morning, that makes us believe we can do the most mundane and the most impossible of tasks.