in the early 1970s, making it among the earliest museums to commit to the medium. Today, the photography department is one of the nation’s leading programs and, with some 7,500 prints, comprises the Museum’s largest collection. These holdings encompass work from around the world made by diverse practitioners, from artists, to entrepreneurs, to journalists, to scientists. Spanning the very beginnings of the medium in the 1840s to the present, the High’s collection has particular strengths in American modernist and documentary traditions from the mid-twentieth century as well as current contemporary trends. The photography collection maintains a strong base of pictures related to the American South and situates this work within a global context that is both regionally relevant and internationally significant. The High owns one of the largest collections of photographs of the civil rights movement and some of the country’s strongest monographic collections of photographs by Eugene Atget, Dawoud Bey, Isla Bing, Wynn Bullock, Lucinda Bunnen, Harry Callahan, William Christenberry, Walker Evans, Leonard Freed, Evelyn Hofer, Clarence John Laughlin, Abelardo Morell, and Peter Sekaer. The collection also gives special attention to pictures made in and of the South, serving as the largest and most significant repository representing the region's important contributions to the history of photography. Since 1996, the High's distinctive "Picturing the South" initiative has commissioned established and emerging photographers to produce work inspired by the area's geographical and cultural landscape. Past participants include Sally Mann, Dawoud Bey, Emmet Gowin, Alex Webb, Alec Soth, Richard Misrach, Kael Alford and Debbie Fleming Caffery, whose commissions have all been added to the High's permanent collection. Gallery Exhibitions Changing exhibitions at the High place emphasis upon the Museum’s collections across all of its curatorial departments and include nationally touring projects as well as international collaborations with other museums. Recent touring exhibitions organized by the High include key projects from its important holdings of folk and self-taught art, photography, and decorative arts and design, among other areas. Other projects hosted at the High included the popular Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors as well as Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech.” Earlier global partnerships with other museums included that with the Louvre and with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle pietre dure in Florence. In 2008, the museum secured a US$18 million deal for Louvre Atlanta, a three-year revolving loan of art from the Musée du Louvre in Paris. The