'The New American Pastoral: Landscape Photography in the Age of Questioning,'' was an exhibition of the work of eight photographers at the Whitney Museum of American Art's branch at the Equitable Center in the 1990 that explored the altered landscape the concern is the marks that humans make on the land. It was organized by Robert Sobieszek, senior curator at the International Museum of Photography.

The American pastoral is concerned with natural beauty --the beauty of nature in an altered, damaged or desolate landscape. The exhibition includes the work of David Taverner Hanson, Lewis Baltz, John Pfahl, Richard Misrach, Emmet Gowin, David Maisel, Patricia Layman Bazelon, and Ray Mortenson.

In his review of the ''The New American Pastoral'' exhibition in the New York Times Andy Grundberg says that in terms of its theme the exhibition is a successor to the ''New Topographics'' exhibition of 1975, and that both exhibitions reflect photographers' attempts to devise a documentary style able to call attention to environmental issues that defy conventional description. Grunberg adds:

What separates the two exhibitions is the matter of the picturesque. The photographers in ''New Topographics'' sought to purge any trace of it from their pictures, while most of those in ''The New American Pastoral'' rely on it as a sign of both loss and possibility. One has to wonder, of course, whether they can have it both ways, and whether the picturesque can be enlisted for what are at heart political statements. There is after all something old-fashioned looking about these new pastoral landscapes, which may have to do with their implicit faith in the ability of traditional photography to illuminate contemporary problems.