Historic photo show closes Sunday at the National Gallery of Art

Henry Peach Robinson, She Never Told Her Love, 1857, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund 

For a glimpse of 19th century American cultural history, one could do well to visit The Eye of the Sun, a display of rare photographs from the collection of the National Gallery of Art which children will find fascinating, too. 

Amelie Guillot-Saguez, Portrait of a Girl, c. 1849, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund.

The label copy for Portrait, above, says that although many women were employed in the photographic industry as hand painters, Ms. Guillot-Saguez made and painted pictures at the same time. She was one of the earliest to own her own studio which she opened in 1844, just five years past photography's debut. In 1849 Ms. Guillot-Saguez won a Bronze Medal at the Exhibition of Products of French Industry. 

Attributed to Hippolyte Bayard, Georgina, dead at age 20, c. 1852, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund. Although the sitter looks well enough here, the label copy says this was likely taken "not long before her death."

Andrew & Ives, Frederick Douglass, 1863, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund

American 19th Century, Sojourner Truth, 1864, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund

The label notes that abolitionists, Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, used the means of photography to depict themselves with "dignity and grace" in their campaigns to rid the nation of slavery and uplift African Americans. Mr. Douglass may have been the most photographed man in the 19th century.
 
Rather than the photographer owning the copyright, Ms. Truth was the first to copyright the subject, herself, leading to her control and distribution of the its image and distribution. (You go, girl!)

Francis Frith, The Pyramids of El-Geezeh, from the South-West, 1858, National Gallery of Art,Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund. The photographer visited Egypt three times between 1856 and 1860 and took pictures for his fans of British armchair travelers. The sizes of the pyramids contrasted with the human figures in the foreground give a viewer an idea about their dimensions.

The title of the exhibition comes from a critic, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake (1809-1883) who described the magic of photography and its quick ascent to popular conversation only 20 years after its introduction in 1839. 

Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901) was so taken with the medium that she had her picture taken with her children in 1852,  but, displeased with her appearance, she obscured her face by scratching it out, not unlike some subjects today who may object to their own likenesses. (In another photograph made two days later by William Edward Kilburn, the queen turns her face and hides it with a bonnet. You can see it in the show.) 

John Reekie A Burial Party, Cold Harbor, Va., 1866 albumen print from Alexander Gardner's Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War (1866), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund A few pages from this rare book lay open inside a glass case at the exhibition.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Xie Kitchin, 1869, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and David Robinson.  Could it be?  Yes, it could, that same "Lewis Carroll" who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Might this be his Alice?  She fits the part, but, alas, Xie is not.  See pictures of the real Alice at the exhibition.  Mr. Dodgson was a mathematics lecturer at Oxford University before he took up photography seriously..

The exhibition is mounted on the occasion of the 180th anniversary of the founding of photography, and the addition of 80 new works to the Gallery's collection, many, on public display for the first time.  It's one of the finest collections in American, the National Gallery touts on its website, and rightfully so!

Thomas H. Johnson, Waymart, c. 1863-1865, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund. Here the photographer shows the scarred landscape resulting from America's rapid industrialization as housing goes up to accommodate laborers working to deliver coal on the Northeast route.

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Sir James Campbell of Stracathro, Tullichewan Castle, Vale of Leven, Scotland, 1857, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased as the Gift of the Richard King Mellon Foundation

Charles Marville, Grotto in the Bois de Boulogne, 1858-1860, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund. Mr. Marville was hired by Paris to photograph the renovated park which it became after Napoleon III transformed the area from royal hunting grounds.

Roger Fenton, Moscow, Domes of Churches in the Kremlin, 1852, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Paul Mellon Fund. You've seen one Moscow dome, you've seen them all. Not really, but not much change over 150 years. It's good that Russia doesn't disrupt all its history by removing historic landmarks like what is happening now with some monuments in the U.S.

Pierre-Ambrose Richebourg, Assembly of Troops for Napoleon III, Place Bellecour de Lyon, 1860, albumen print, Purchased as the Gift of Diana and Mallory Walke

William Henry Jackson, Central City, Colorado, 1881, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Amon C. Carter Foundation Fund and Buffy and William Cafritz Fund.  One of America's leading landscape photographers, Mr. Jackson shot the "booming" town, founded in 1859 after gold was discovered in them thar hills.

Viscountess Jocelyn, Interior of Room, c. 1862. National Gallery of Art, Washington, R. K. Mellon Family Foundation

 

Alexander Gardner, A Sharpshooter's Last Sleep, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund. This photograph was included in Mr. Gardner's Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War (1866). Unannounced but discovered by a sharp eye, according to the label copy, the photographer moved bodies around from one place to another for greater effect and mistakenly positioned this dead soldier with a musket rather than a sharpshooter's rifle.

American 19th Century, Portrait of a Girl Postmortem, c. 1850, daguerreotype image, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund

American 19th Century, Portrait of a Girl Postmortem, c. 1850, daguerreotype image, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund  
 
The first 50 years of photography when "profound change" embraced the world are covered. (Prithee, when does "profound change" not embrace the world? Is there ever an "unprofound time"? Maybe, the 1950s? But women were beginning to see the light of a new day then. )

Except for the first Sun gallery (there are five), the layout is thematic (unlike that found in this post where the photos are mixed from several galleries).

Included are works by William Henry Fox Talbot, who was one of photography's inventors, Anna Atkins, Édouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Marville, George Barnard, Roger Fenton, Hill and Adamson, John Moran, Eadweard Muybridge, Charles Nègre, Andrew Russell, Augustus Washington, and Carleton Watkins, among others.

The show is rather like a viewing party of a large family photo album of Western culture and practices from the time of photography's inception in 1839 to post (U.S.) Civil War. Upon an initial visit, it may appear that the pictures are laid out happenstance, but that perception contributes to its charm, as a viewer stands and walks to peer into the lives of others, captured by visuals.

What: The Eye of the Sun: Nineteenth-Century Photographs from the National Gallery of Art

When: Now through December 8, 2019, The National Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and on Sunday, 11 a.m.- 6 p.m.

Where: The West Building at the National Gallery of Art, between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

How much: Admission to the National Gallery of Art is always free.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215


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