Fortune of the Spirit | Robert Bergman is Anchored by the Museum’s Recent Acquisition of 51 of the Artist’s Street Portraits

Fort Worth, TX, August 13, 2024—The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) today announced the first institutional retrospective of the artist Robert Bergman (b. 1944), on view May 18 through August 10, 2025. The exhibition follows the Museum’s acquisition of 51 portraits featured in Bergman's 1998 monograph, A Kind of Rapture, made possible by a gift from philanthropist and art collector J. Tomilson Hill. Fortune of the Spirit | Robert Bergman presents a broad selection of works from the major series throughout the artist's career and showcases Bergman's color street portraits, many of which will be on view for the first time, alongside his rarely seen early street photographs and career-spanning abstractions. Bergman’s photographs capture his subjects with an extraordinary intimacy afforded by removing elements of distance and foregoing identification through titles or labels, inviting viewers to participate directly in the exchange between subject and viewer.

Bringing together 65 works, Fortune of the Spirit offers an extensive look into Bergman’s six-decade-long career, beginning with his early black-and-white street photographs of people and details around the artist’s hometown of Minneapolis as well as other locations including Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and New York, which are emblematic of his early explorations of the human psyche. The exhibition then presents two never-before-seen works from the 1970s that reflect Bergman’s early experiments with abstraction. At the exhibition’s core are the intimate portraits captured between 1985 and 1997 during Bergman’s travels east of the Mississippi River. These meticulously composed works mark the artist’s transition from black and white to the use of vivid, painterly color and a new commitment to close-up portraiture. Employing this close-range perspective, Bergman removes most visual context and setting, leaving viewers confronted with the raw presence of the subject and challenging assumptions about composing photographs in an urban environment.

“The Carter places significant emphasis on acquiring, studying, and displaying works of art that shine new light on the American experience,” said Andrew J. Walker, Executive Director of the Carter. “We are proud to recognize Bergman’s notable contributions to American art in Fortune of the Spirit and introduce him to a new generation of museum-goers. Given the division and isolation so often felt in this country, this retrospective offers a point of connection, asking viewers to accept our shared humanity in all its forms.”

Reflecting Bergman’s choice not to title or date any of his works, each section of the exhibition will be introduced by a descriptive wall text, but the individual works will remain free of labels to facilitate direct engagement with each image. The four sections will explore the artist’s four main series:

• Prelude: The exhibition opens with 10 rarely seen black-and-white street views that Bergman created between the mid-1960s and early 1980s during his deep investigations into psychoanalysis and other psychology, existentialism, philosophy, art history, and literature, as he tried to answer fundamental questions around humanity and who we are. Inspired by Robert Frank’s controversial and now heralded book study of mid-century U.S. life, The Americans (1959), these images express Bergman's own sense of the human condition.
• Journey: This section, which acts as a gateway to the core of the exhibition, is comprised of two never-before-seen black-and-white abstractions and features work created across the early and mid-1970s. Inspired in part by Beethoven’s Opus 131, these works lure viewers into expansive worlds of luminous possibility.
• A Kind of Rapture: This section presents 50 of the thousands of portraits and details that Bergman captured between 1985 and 1997 amidst the streets of America’s midwestern and northeastern cities. This section takes its title from his 1998 publication A Kind of Rapture, which was titled through a collaboration with his close friend and champion of his work, novelist Toni Morrison. Deeply challenging at their emotional and psychological cores, these photographs, many of which are being shown for the first time, use the full language of art to blend immediacy into essence with all the power of paintings. These works may make viewers feel self-aware, allowing the possibility to find ourselves in those whom the portraits portray.
• Spirit: In the decades following his achievements in photographic portraiture, Bergman returned to abstraction, this time in effervescent color. The three large-scale images filling the exhibition’s closing section transport the viewer into the charged worlds of human turmoil and grace.

“Bergman is a singular figure in the field due to his astute eye for color and intensely psychological representations of his subjects,” said John Rohrbach, Curator Emeritus at the Carter. “His photographs often have the effect of visualizing what it means to be human and evoke self-awareness of our own being, while presenting an unexpected message of community and kinship to which everyone can relate. Though Bergman has not yet received the audience or attention commensurate with his achievements, it is hard to underestimate his artistic stature, which has been publicly and privately recognized by a wide range of cultural figures to psychologists and religious leaders.”

The Carter will publish a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition, featuring printed plates of all 65 exhibition images and edited by John Rohrbach, Curator Emeritus. The images will be accompanied by essays by Rohrbach, Will Heinrich, Andrew Solomon, and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, addressing the issues of human psychological struggle, empathy, responsibility, and community raised by Bergman’s art and practice.

Fortune of the Spirit | Robert Bergman is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the David H. Gibson Foundation, Janine and J. Tomilson Hill, the Leo Potishman Foundation, and the Alice L. Walton Foundation Temporary Exhibitions Endowment. Additional support is generously provided by Bob Adamski.

About the Artist

Robert Bergman (b. 1944) is an American artist known for his photographic portraits that innovatively explore what it is to be human. Born in New Orleans in 1944, Bergman began taking and developing photographs as a child, seriously embracing the medium in his early 20s. Across the decades, Bergman continued to evolve his practice—including moving from a large-format view camera to a 35mm handheld camera, transitioning to color photography, painting, and capturing increasingly meditative and intimate moments—ultimately establishing his own distinct voice within the art world. Bergman’s meticulous printing processes juxtapose the saturated and muted hues of both the city and his subjects to achieve a rich, painterly idiom. Bergman’s solo exhibitions include Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986–1995 (2009) at the National Gallery of Art and Robert Bergman: Selected Portraits (2009) at MoMA PS1. Bergman’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and National Gallery of Art, as well as many private collections. The artist resides in Minneapolis and New York City.

About the Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Located in the heart of Fort Worth’s Cultural District, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) is a dynamic cultural resource that provides unique access and insight into the history and future of American creativity through its expansive exhibitions and programming. The Carter’s preeminent collection includes masterworks by legendary American artists such as Ruth Asawa, Alexander Calder, Frederic Church, Stuart Davis, Robert Duncanson, Thomas Eakins, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, and John Singer Sargent, as well as one of the country’s foremost repositories of American photography. In addition to its innovative exhibition program and engagement with artists working today, the Museum’s premier primary research collection and leading conservation program make it a must-see destination for art lovers and scholars of all ages nationwide. Admission is always free. To learn more about the Carter, visit cartermuseum.org.