Donna Ferrato, Janice (detail), 1984, gelatin silver print

Donna Ferrato: 'Living with the Enemy' and the Power of Women

Now showing12 June 2026 – 28 February 2027$30

Fifty years of photojournalism by Donna Ferrato (b. 1949), documenting the resilience of women — particularly survivors of domestic violence — from inside shelters and alongside law enforcement.

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On now All of October 2026

One night in 1982, Donna Ferrato was staying with a couple she was photographing on assignment when she found the husband hitting his wife, Elisabeth. She took the picture, partly hoping a witness would make him stop. A print from that night hangs here.

Through the 1980s she stayed in women's shelters and rode with police on abuse calls, work that became her 1991 book Living with the Enemy. Many prints come from it, like a mother and her baby son at a Philadelphia shelter. Others jump ahead: a US soldier in Saudi Arabia, a 1994 New York Pride parade, a Texas women's health clinic in 2019, some with Ferrato's handwriting in ink. More come from Holy (2020), which she says shows "the unleashed power of women."

The museum warns that the photographs depict domestic abuse and asks you to take them at your own pace. It's one room, Gallery 158, included with $30 admission, and open until 10 pm on Thursdays and Fridays.

Look for

Elisabeth's Night of Horror (1982)
A print from the night Ferrato, a guest in the couple's home, photographed Elisabeth's husband hitting her: the picture that started her decade of work on domestic abuse.
Mother and Infant Son, Women Against Abuse Shelter, Philadelphia (1985)
Look for a mother with her baby son inside one of the shelters where Ferrato lived while making Living with the Enemy.
Whole Women's Health Clinic, San Antonio, TX (2019)
A black-and-white picture from a Texas clinic, with Ferrato's own handwriting in ink on the print.