Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography

What Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography does

Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography (FEP) is an independent non-profit organization founded in 2003 and headquartered in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, with additional offices in Paris, France, and Lausanne, Switzerland. The organization produces museum-quality photography exhibitions and circulates them to partnering museums and cultural institutions worldwide. Exhibitions span diverse thematic territory — fashion photography, conceptual art, portraiture, environmental documentation, and historic archives — featuring photographers such as Edward Steichen, Arnold Newman, James Balog, Lorna Simpson, Vik Muniz, Thomas Demand, and Anastasia Samoylova. FEP's product model combines original curatorial direction, scholarly exhibition catalogues (some published with Rizzoli and other trade publishers), and multi-year international touring itineraries that have produced documented visitor outcomes such as 600,000+ attendees for Beyond Fashion in Changsha, China.

FEP's revenue is generated through exhibition licensing and touring fees paid by host venues, publication and catalogue sales, and institutional/membership support (the "todi circle" donor program). Specific pricing is not publicly disclosed. Customers are exclusively museums, art centers, photography institutions, and galleries — all non-profit or governmental — across more than 20 countries spanning North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Latin America. The organization operates with a small team of 1–10 employees, relying on a curated network of strategic co-production partners — including Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne), Independent Curators International (New York), the Jewish Museum (New York), Rencontres d'Arles, and Earth Vision Institute — for collection access, curatorial expertise, and venue reach. Marketing occurs primarily through the company website, email newsletter, and organic social media (Instagram, Facebook), with earned media from exhibition coverage.

Operationally, FEP runs an event-driven, project-based go-to-market model: each exhibition is a discrete production that moves through a multi-year tour across regional venues. The organization maintains a global footprint without geographic restrictions and has not disclosed any subsidiaries, acquisitions, funding rounds, or external ownership; it remains a private non-profit operating under U.S. jurisdiction in Minnesota.

Name

Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography

Legal name

Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography

Website

https://fep-photo.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography is an independent non-profit that produces museum-quality photography exhibitions and circulates them globally to partnering museums, galleries, and cultural institutions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Lausanne

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Exhibition Production and Touring: As an independent non-profit organization, FEP generates revenue through producing and touring museum-quality photography exhibitions to venues worldwide, supplemented by publication sales and likely institutional support.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP) is an independent non-profit organization that produces museum-quality photography exhibitions and circulates them internationally to partnering museums and galleries. The organization curates thematic exhibitions featuring renowned photographers, coordinates multi-year touring across museums on multiple continents, and accompanies each exhibition with a professionally published catalogue.

Product overview

Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP) is an independent non-profit organization that produces unique and influential museum-quality photography exhibitions and circulates them around the world. The organization offers a portfolio of exhibitions spanning diverse themes including fashion photography, portraiture, nature, conceptual art, and historic photography. FEP's core offerings include traveling exhibitions that tour to major museums globally, accompanied by exhibition catalogues and publications. Key exhibitions include 'Masters of New York' featuring abstract expressionism, 'Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History', 'Flora Imaginaria' exploring botanical photography, 'Beyond Fashion' examining fashion photography as art, and works by photographers such as Lorna Simpson, Vik Muniz, James Balog, Edward Steichen, and Anastasia Samoylova. FEP also publishes exhibition catalogues in collaboration with international publishers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Photography Exhibitions

Named customers14 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

14 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and supporting.

• The Jewish Museum, New YorkcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-organized Masters of New York: The Generation of Rothko, Pollock, and Krasner exhibition, drawing from the Jewish Museum's collection of postwar American abstraction.
• Nowon Foundation for Arts and CulturemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration partner for Masters of New York exhibition, facilitating presentation at Nowon Art Museum in Seoul, South Korea.
• ENA PartnersmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborating organization for the Masters of New York exhibition tour in Seoul, South Korea.
• Musée de l'Elysée, LausannecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-producer of Edward Steichen exhibitions including Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography and In High Fashion: The Condé Nast Years. Long-standing partnership with Swiss photography museum.
• Independent Curators International (ICI), New YorkcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-producer of The Taxonomy of Shadows: On Photographic Collectivism exhibition. FEP and ICI collaborating on this traveling exhibition exploring African photographic collectivism.
• Howard Greenberg GallerysupportingGTM or Marketing PartnerGenerous supporter of the Nadav Kander: The Edge of Things exhibition.
• Flowers GallerysupportingGTM or Marketing PartnerGenerous supporter of the Nadav Kander: The Edge of Things exhibition.
• Earth Vision InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-producing the James Balog: Photographs from the Anthropocene exhibition, supporting environmental photography initiatives.
• Rencontres d'ArlescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-producer of Arno Rafael Minkkinen: Optic Nerve exhibition (Human Nature). Partnership with major French photography festival.
• Jeu de Paume, PariscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-producer of Lorna Simpson: Retrospective exhibition. Partnership with leading French photography center.
• UNIQUEPIECEmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-organizer with FEP of Urban Chronicles: American Color Photography exhibition, in association with Hyundai Card for presentation at Storage Hyundai Card.
• Caja DuerosupportingGTM or Marketing PartnerOrganizational support provided for Sacred Legacy: Edward S. Curtis exhibition.
• U.S. Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP)supportingGTM or Marketing PartnerSupport for Sacred Legacy: Edward S. Curtis modern prints exhibition touring.
• Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF)supportingGTM or Marketing PartnerSupport for Edward S. Curtis exhibition touring program.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• International Center of Photography (ICP): New York-based photography museum and education center that produces major photography exhibitions. Operates with a larger staff and permanent venue than FEP, but addresses the same curatorial and exhibition-development function for the photography museum segment.
• Aperture Foundation: Non-profit photography publisher and exhibition producer connected to Aperture magazine. Like FEP, it combines photography publishing with exhibition programming targeting museum and gallery audiences, with comparable curatorial and content-publishing scope.
• Magnum Photos: Photography cooperative and content organization with a deep archive of iconic imagery. While broader than FEP (spanning commercial, editorial, and exhibition work), Magnum operates in the photography-exhibition ecosystem with touring retrospectives that overlap with FEP's content domain.
• Foam: Amsterdam photography museum with a traveling exhibition program. Comparable to FEP in producing photography exhibitions for international audiences; FEP has placed exhibitions at Foam (Nadav Kander), making it both a peer and an institutional customer.
• World Press Photo: Non-profit that produces an annual touring exhibition of award-winning photojournalism displayed in museums worldwide. Adjacent to FEP in the touring photography exhibition model, but with a thematic focus on press and documentary photography.

Direct peers

• Independent Curators International (ICI): New York-based non-profit that produces and tours contemporary art exhibitions to museums worldwide. Like FEP, ICI travels curated exhibitions across multiple venues globally and is explicitly a co-production partner of FEP (Taxonomy of Shadows), making it the closest direct functional peer.
• Jeu de Paume: Paris-based photography and image-art center. Long-standing FEP partner and co-producer (Thomas Demand, Lorna Simpson exhibitions), sharing the same venue-side exhibition programming model for photography at the museum level.
• Rencontres d'Arles: Major annual photography festival in Arles, France. FEP is an explicit co-production partner on the Arno Rafael Minkkinen exhibition, making Rencontres one of the most direct functional peers — both produce and circulate photography exhibitions involving major artists.
• Musée de l'Elysée: Lausanne photography museum that has co-produced multiple FEP exhibitions (Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography, In High Fashion). Functions as both a partner museum and a peer in photography-exhibition curation for international audiences.

Regional players

• Aimia | AGO Photography: Art Gallery of Ontario photography program (broader institution). While a general art museum rather than a photography specialist, it produces and hosts photography exhibitions comparable in scope to FEP touring shows, primarily serving a North American audience.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/fep.foundation
• Instagraminstagram.com/fep_photo
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/foundation-for-the-exhibition-of-photography

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Foundation For The Exhibition Of Photography