Carnegie Museum of Art announced yesterday that it has created a new curatorial department of photography and has appointed as its first head Linda Benedict-Jones.

She has been executive director of the Silver Eye Center for Photography on the South Side since 1999. Under her guidance, the center matured from a small local arts organization to one of national stature with a laudable exhibitions program and expanded membership.

Her last day at Silver Eye will be Dec. 5 and she will begin at the Carnegie Dec. 15.

Benedict-Jones says that the decision to leave Silver Eye was a difficult one, but that she's "looking forward to working with photographic images and presenting them to the public. And I also want to work with photographers.

"The most important thing is that our museum is creating this department of photography," she says, noting that most comparable institutions have photograph departments and one curator or more.

The Carnegie's collection comprises approximately 4,500 photographs, including works by Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania photographers from the 1860s to the present, as well as classical works. The museum is also home to the archives of McKeesport native and international photographer Duane Michals, and the late Pittsburgher Charles "Teenie" Harris, whose work is considered to be among the most important documentations of African-American life in the 20th century.

Recent additions include a gift of more than 150 vintage and contemporary photographs from the George H. Ebbs collection, and the "Pine Flat Portrait Studio" collection by 2008 Carnegie International exhibiting artist Sharon Lockhart.

The museum's connection with photography dates to the early 20th century, when its annual exhibitions of the Pittsburgh Photographic Salon included the works of local and international photographers.

Benedict-Jones will oversee the museum's collection and plan the department's exhibitions and acquisitions. Already on the books are a traveling exhibition of photography illustrating the international steel industry, which she will co-organize with guest curator Howard Bossen, and an exhibition of Harris' photographs.

Carnegie director Richard Armstrong says she will bring "a wide and discerning acquaintance with photography to the museum, and is a well-respected figure both in Pittsburgh and nationally."

Benedict-Jones co-curated with Charlee Brodsky the popular 1997 Carnegie exhibition "Pittsburgh Revealed: Photographs Since 1850."

She was curator of education at the Frick Art & Historical Center from 1997 to 1999; adjunct curator at the Carnegie from 1994 to 1997; curator of the Polaroid Collection, Cambridge, Mass., from 1989 to 1993; and director of the Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Polaroid Corp., Cambridge, from 1984 to 1989.

For Silver Eye she organized more than 20 exhibitions. She has lectured and taught extensively here and in Europe, including at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Silver Eye board has begun a search for a new director and Benedict-Jones assures that her replacement will find an organization in good order.

"We just had a successful auction, just renovated the building, we have money in the bank, and grant funding is in place for the next two years.

"This is the perfect time to welcome a new person who will come and not be overwhelmed [with challenges] as I was when I came."

In the meantime, she says, "I still have two big months of work at Silver Eye."