A new exhibit at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, displaying more than 70 of the most acclaimed images by photojournalist Brian Lanker, offers a pictorial retrospective on his remarkable life.

Lanker passed away five years ago, and a new exhibit displaying his career-defining photos and other multimedia features will soon open. Titled “From the Heart: The Photographs of Brian Lanker,” the collection will be on display from Jan. 23 through April 24. The exhibit kicks off with a free reception Friday, Jan. 22, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the campus museum.

In addition to the photo collection, the display also will include a comprehensive book of the artist’s photography — with the same title as the exhibit, complete with reflections from colleagues, friends and family — as well as an audio-visual educational program titled “Images of Man,” which is a series of eight slide shows featuring the art of different photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Eliot Porter and Lanker. “They Drew Fire: Combat Artists of WWII,” a 1998 documentary produced by Lanker, also will be shown as part of the exhibit.

The images in “From the Heart” are chosen mostly from Lanker’s three published photobooks — “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America,” “Shall We Dance?” and “10,000 Years of Shoes,” which was published posthumously in 2011 by the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

Two events on the opening day of the exhibit will recognize Lanker’s long career and his influence on the world of photography.

Michael O’Brien and D.J. Stout — O’Brien is a nationally-acclaimed photographer and Stout is a design partner at Pentagram — will hold a discussion on the book’s creation: “From Photograph to Art Book:  The Making of ‘From the Heart: The Photographs of Brian Lanker,’” which will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, at the museum.

At 2 p.m., a panel discussion will be held featuring Lanker’s former colleagues at The Register-Guard in Eugene and The Topeka Capital-Journal newspapers. Rich Clarkson, Lanker’s mentor and former director of photography at the Capital-Journal, will introduce the event.

Following his newspaper days, Lanker also worked as a free-lance photographer for several magazines, including Life, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated.

“From the Heart” is made possible by the Clarkson Creative, the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, and museum members.

—By Nathaniel Brown, Public Affairs Communications