Photographs from this collection were taken between 1940 and 1986 and were shot predominantly in Arizona but also in Alaska, Montana, Colorado, Utah and Mexico. The images, consisting mostly of positive Kodachrome and Ektachrome transparencies, feature a wide range of Southwestern scenes, including images of agriculture, cities, homes, hotels and resorts, rodeos, dude ranches, shopping centers and more. Because of the commercial nature of many of the images, the collection functions as a kind of survey of popular marketing ideas about how to promote the "Southwestern lifestyle"—however narrowly and homogenously defined in scope and practice—in the decades in which the photographs were taken.
Shown below are a series of images from the collection that embody both the artifice of commercial lifestyle photography as well as the gorgeous Southwest scenery of the McLaughlins’ best work.
—Matt Messbarger, Reference Coordinator, Distinctive Collections