Overview & Events

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
— W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" (1919)

The Vietnam War was the most photographed war in history, its chaos and tragedy captured with an immediacy never before seen. Anarchy Loosed Upon the World presents a rare and powerful selection of vintage "wire transmission" photographs—original press images that brought the front lines directly into American living rooms. Sourced from the archives of major newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, these prints represent the courageous work of combat photojournalists who risked—and sometimes lost—their lives to document the conflict.

Unlike modern reproductions, these are original prints made from negatives developed in field labs and transmitted by wire to news outlets across the country. While many of these iconic images are etched into our collective memory, surviving prints are scarce—most were destroyed after publication. This collection, assembled over more than a decade by collector Jo C. Tartt, offers a visceral, firsthand experience of what it meant to be at war, through the lens of those who witnessed it most closely.

This exhibition is not a chronological history of the war. Rather, it is a meditation on the human cost of conflict and the unique power of photography to bear witness. Through these images, the war—its sorrow, its chaos, its human toll—comes home once more.