For “Manoel de Oliveira Photographer,” curator António Preto gathered more than a hundred of the renowned Portuguese film director’s photographs, many of which had never before been shown. Produced between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s, these images offered a valuable critical reading of modernity in Portugal and illuminated the creative processes of one of its great artists.

In the works in the first part of the exhibition, Oliveira’s camera turned to the interior of the country—to the vastness of its landscape, the labor in its fields, and the individuality of farmworkers who cease to be