‘Untitled (Car on Road)’ (c. 1952).

St. Louis

In the 1960s, as a child, Eric Lutz went on road trips with his family in a red Volkswagen bus; his father, an artist, drove. Now, as associate curator of photographs at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Mr. Lutz is responsible for “In Search of America: Photography and the Road Trip,” conjured up in part by his memories of those youthful journeys. There are over 100 prints in the exhibition; the 53 in the first half are all by Emil Otto “E.O.” Hoppé. Phillip Prodger, who preceded Mr. Lutz at SLAM, organized an exhibition of Hoppé’s portraits at London’s National Portrait Gallery in 2011; he piqued Mr. Lutz’s interest in a photographer who, after great success in his lifetime, is now chronically under-appreciated.

‘Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’ (1926), by E.O. Hoppé.

Hoppé (1878-1972) was born in Munich, educated in Vienna, began a career as a banker, and in 1900 settled in London, where he married, bought a camera, and eventually became a British citizen. In 1907, after gaining attention as a talented amateur photographer, he abandoned banking, became a professional photographer, and soon became as famous as the celebrities whose portraits he took. In 1926, Hoppé was commissioned to produce a travel book on America. He visited more than 120 cities and 35 states, the first known instance of a photographer taking so extensive a road trip. His book, “Romantic America,” was a triumph; it sold nearly 100,000 copies.

“Skyline and Waterfront, New York City,” shot during a visit in 1921, is a moody work; docks are silhouetted in the foreground, above them is a river and on its other side a dark metropolis with tall buildings reaching up to an overcast sky. The “Scene at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania” (dated 1926, as are all his other pictures here) captures some Revolutionary War re-enactors. Hoppé showed his interest in engineering in “Ohio River From the Point, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”; the city, with its industrial smokestacks, is seen through the steel parts of a bridge. And in “Ford Factory, Detroit, Michigan” the gigantic plant is an arrangement of geometric shapes. Automobiles and the facilities that accommodate them are a recurring subject.

Hoppé’s ‘Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico’ (1926).

He found the landscapes and peoples of the Southwest particularly fascinating. “The effect upon me was one of wonderment and awe,” he said. The buttes and other formations in “Monument Valley, Arizona” take up only the bottom third of the image while majestic clouds float overhead. Two women draped in black shawls walk with a child down a dirt road in “Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.” In “Half Dome From Glacier Point, Yosemite,” the formation that Ansel Adams showed in a dramatic close-up is seen in a hazy distance. There is a clarity of intention in Hoppé’s pictures—we see what he wanted us to see.

Hoppé’s reputation eroded by the end of the 20th century, probably because his archive was so mishandled it was hard to find prints. But curators like Mr. Prodger and Mr. Lutz are reassembling his work and fame. Fittingly, “From the Museum, St. Louis, Missouri” (1926), a picture of the statue in front of SLAM, is in the current show.

Robert Frank’s ‘Chicago’ (1956).

The picture used to advertise the second half of “In Search of America” is “Untitled (Car on Road),” a vista from the 1950s with distant mountains and, in the foreground, a curved segment of road with a car about to drive out the right side. An interesting image of unknown provenance, it is a stand-in for all the amateur pictures taken by all the anonymous Americans on all their adventurous road trips. There are other such works here, as well as many by famous road-trippers.

Robert Frank had to be included; his “Beaufort, South Carolina” (1955) is a tender picture of a black woman sitting on a chair in a treeless field, her left arm akimbo and her head turned away from the camera. Compulsive traveler Lee Friedlander has three pictures; “Galax, Virginia” (1962) was shot in a hotel room, a Coca-Cola truck seen outside the window. “Greek Temple Building, Natchez, Mississippi” (1935), from Walker Evans’s celebrated “American Photographs,” is an austere structure with four Ionic columns, reduced in status from bank to sign shop. Stephen Shore frequently concentrated on the minutiae of travel; his “Harbor View Motel, Kenora, Ontario” (1974) shows the rug and a corner of the bed from his place for the night.

Russell Lee’s ‘Untitled (Men in Truck)’ (c. 1936).

Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Ben Shahn and Marion Post Wolcott are represented by photographs they took while traveling to document the Depression. Of less social significance, but important in the development of color photography, is Joel Sternfeld’s “Page, Arizona” (1983). Is the woman posing on a hill with a town and vista in the background a companion, or a stranger he met en route?

There is a rapture between Americans and the road. Gas is affordable this summer; there will be photographs.

In Search of America: Photography and the Road Trip

Saint Louis Art Museum, through Oct. 19