Manifestations of the Spiritual: Photographs by Richard Jaquish (exhibition through 3/22)

On display through March 22 in the Rotunda of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery is Manifestations of the Spiritual: Photographs by Richard Jaquish, an exhibition drawn from the holdings of the Richard Jaquish Archive in the Special Collections Department.

Richard Warren “Jake” Jaquish (1933–1999) was a passionate landscape photographer for whom making photographs was a spiritual quest. Being out in the middle of a wilderness area gave him great satisfaction especially when he made images that touched upon something elemental in the human spirit. The primordial landscape produced in him a heightened awareness of matters only explainable in terms of images.

Trained in photography at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) during the late 1950s, Jaquish studied with notables such as Minor White and Beaumont Newhall. He graduated in 1960 taught elsewhere, and soon came to Baltimore to teach at the Maryland Institute College of Art. After eighteen years, he left teaching to work as a professional photographer for the Maryland State Department of Transportation where he was able to earn a living making his beloved landscape photographs.

The Richard Jaquish Archive was given to UMBC by Alwilda Scholler Jaquish, and supported by the Richard and Alwilda Scholler Jaquish Endowment. The show was produced by Tom Beck, Chief Curator, and Jazmin Smith, UMBC ’14.