In 2018, The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona acquired Kennerly’s full archive which, as the university described in a 2019 press release, [https://news.arizona.edu/story/kennerly-archive-acquired-ua-center-creative-photography] contained “nearly one million images, prints, objects, memorabilia, correspondence, and documents.” Kennerly’s work joins that of more than 2,000 photographers at the Center for Creative Photography, including W. Eugene Smith, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Edward Westin, Garry Winogrand, and Kennerly’s great friend Ansel Adams.

This historic acquisition was formally announced at an October 11, 2019 event on the University of Arizona campus that featured a talk between Kennerly and fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham. In addition, the university mounted two tandem exhibitions of Kennerly’s photographs curated by Center for Creative Photography’s Chief Curator, Becky Senf. One exhibition included eight-foot tall kiosks of some of Kennerly’s well-known and lesser-known work. These large kiosks were spread throughout the university’s main quad on Family Weekend and worked together to create a large interactive learning experience for students, families, staff, and visitors. The other exhibit, David Hume Kennerly: Witness to History, was a year-long exhibition hung in the corridors of the University’s primary administration building, Old Main.