Second Sight is drawn from the exceptional collection of photography amassed by Dr David Kronn for the past twenty years, and which is a promised gift to IMMA. The David Kronn Collection comprises more than 550 photographs ranging in content from 19th-century Daguerreotypes; works by icons of modern photography such as Edward Weston and August Sander; as well as works by award-winning contemporary photographers such as Trine Sondergaard and Simon Norfolk. In 2011, IMMA staged the first exhibition from this collection. Second Sight marks the donation of 50 works to IMMA from the Kronn Collection, this donation will be shown alongside a display of work by contemporary international photographers from the IMMA Collection.
A number of images of Ireland in the 1950s, 60s and 70s are represented in the IMMA Collection in works by Magnum photographers such as Abbas, Marc Riboud, Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwitt, Philip Jones Griffith and Inge Morath. Some of these will be integrated in the exhibition showing the affinities they share for instance with images of Irish life by Evelyn Hofer and Dorothea Lange from the Kronn Collection. In terms of contemporary photography, the themes, motivations, expressions and working practices that occur among artists in the IMMA Collection who use photography as their main medium or as part of their production such as Willie Doherty, Paul Seawright, Gerard Byrne, Amelia Stein or Perry Ogden for example, will be explored through juxtapositions with the Kronn Collection in ways that give rise to potential encounters and discourses. The selection of works will search for ideas in common irrespective of visual outcomes and in so doing how one collection can be folded into another.