Showing posts with label historic photographs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historic photographs. Show all posts

Monday, January 6, 2020

'Light of the Silvery Moon' dims at the National Gallery of Art

Warren De La Rue, Full Moon, 1858-1859, stereoscopic glass transparency, printed 1862, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, National Gallery of Art


If you missed the moon show at the National Gallery of Art, you may see some of the photographs here and more of them at the National Gallery's website.



Last year marked the Golden Anniversary of the first moon landing by humans which the National Gallery commemorated with a display titled By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar Phonographs showcasing 50 historic moon shots spanning 100 years.
Lewis M. Rutherfurd, Photographie de la lune a son 1er Quartier, March 6, 1865, albumen print, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund, National Gallery of Art

In a mostly chronological arrangement, the exhibition began with a stenographic print made of the moon in 1858 and continued on with pictures from the 1960s Space Age. Pictures made by the first lunar astronauts and notable visuals from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration hung on the walls and lay in display cases.  They are part of the National Gallery's vast photography collection of more than 16,000 works. 


Charles Le Morvan, Carte photographique de la lune, planche XVII.A (Photographic Chart of the Moon, plate XVII.A), August 27, 1902, photogravure, printed 1914, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Earthrise across Mare Smythii, July 16-24, 1969, chromogenic print, gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, National Gallery of Art

A photograph in the exhibition by Warren De La Rue (1815-1889) of Great Britain opened the show.  He began his moon picture-taking in 1852 and is credited with making the first stereoscopic moon prints (1858).

American lawyer Lewis M. Rutherfurd took a moon shot in its first quarter in 1865. His moon passion led to him to technological advancements and clear lunar pictures.  (Mr. Rutherfurd built an observatory at his Manhattan residence.) 

The French entered the picture with the 1862 publication of Our Satellite by Dr. A. Le Vengeur d'Onrsan (1800-1899), the first of a planned series to define the Moon's mapping ("selenography"; try that on a logophile), but, alas, the good doctor was accused of stealing Mr. De La Rue's pictures and Our Satellite never saw completion.

Gallery curators Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner spent hours studying and researching photos from the collection before making final choices for this presentation of American achievement.

Mugs, puzzles, jewelry, stationery, photographs, and more moon merchandise are still available in the Gallery shops.

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Thursday, December 5, 2019

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
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


patricialesli@gmail.com














Friday, July 14, 2017

19th century photographs on display through Sunday

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Edward H. Fox, 1851-1919, On Clear Fork, Rugby, Tennessee, 1880s.  From the collection of William L. Schaeffer.The label describes Rugby as a utopian coummunity established for British boys who were ineligible to inherit family estates due to primogeniture. A new railroad to Chattanooga permitted the viability of the town which still exists!

See America's 19th century history in 175 pictures on display through Sunday at the National Gallery of Art.

East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography is the first show of its kind to focus on the Civil War century and its aftermath, not only in city scenes, but in visuals from  the country, too. Lenders to the exhibition include 42 collectors, museums and libraries from the U.S. and Canada.
 James E. McClees, 1822-1857, Entrance to Woodlands Cemetery, The Library Company of Philadelphia. This Philadelphia cemetery was like many of the era when citizens enjoyed the grounds like they would enjoy a park.  They relaxed and picnicked. 
Frederick DeBourg Richards, 1822-1903, The Hole in the Wall, 1859. Black Dog Collection. The "hole in the wall" was fencing installed to permit passersby opportunity to see Benjamin Franklin's grave at Christ Church, Philadelphia.

Photographers in the show include Charles Bierstadt, John Moran, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, William Rau, and George Barnard.

The National Gallery of Art organized the exhibition in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art. With Yale University Press, the museums have published a catalogue of 288 pages with 220 color illustrations available in the shops.
 Jay Dearborn Edwards, 1831-1900, South Claiborne Avenue at Common Street (New Orleans), 1858-1861, The Historic New Orleans Collection
 Jay Dearborn Edwards, 1831-1900, Esplanade Street from Royal Street Toward Lake (New Orleans), 1858-1861, The Historic New Orleans Collection
  George Barker, 1844-1894, Silver Springs, Florida, c. 1886, Daniel Wolf, Inc.

Isaac A. Bonsall, 1833-1909, Chattanooga, Tennessee from Lookout Mountain, 1863-1865, Collection of Paul Sack

After the National Gallery, the exhibition moves to the New Orleans Museum of Art where it shall be up from October 5, 2017 through January 7, 2018. 

The National Gallery's Diane Waggoner was curator. Support from the Trellis Fund and Kate and Wes Mitchell made the show possible.

What: East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography

When: The National Gallery of Art is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday. The exhibition closes Sunday, July 16, 2017. 
 
Where: The ground floor of the West Building, the National Gallery of Art, between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission charge:
None

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

For more information: 202-737-4215

patricialesli@gmail.com


 
 



Sunday, July 26, 2015

Last day for historic photographs at the National Gallery of Art


James Van Der Zee (1886-1983), Couple, 1924, National Gallery of Art, Washington

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Department of Photography at the National Gallery of Art, curators Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner selected 175 works from the Gallery's collection of almost 15,000 pictures for a special exhibition which traces photography's history from its inception in 1839 through the 1970s.

And today is the last day to see the exhibition entitled In Light of the Past: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography at the National Gallery of Art.

Talk about a job to choose one percent of a collection for commemoration! Imagine.
Weegee (1899-1968), The Critic, 1943, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Irving Penn (1917-2009),  Woman with Roses (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in Lafaurie Dress), Paris, 1950. National Gallery of Art, Washington

The cornerstone for the department was laid in 1949 by the artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and the estate of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) who donated Stieglitz's Key Set, including 1,600 prints, to the National Gallery.  Wikipedia labels it the world's largest and most complete collection of his photographs. 

Later, after a Stieglitz exhibition in 1983, and one in 1985 featuring works by Ansel Adams (1902 -1984), Virginia Adams donated her husband's Museum Set.
Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), Vanderbilt Avenue from East 46th Street, October 9, 1935,  National Gallery of Art, Washington
Helen Levitt (1918-2009), New York, c. 1942, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Some of the other photographers represented in the exhibition are Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Marianne Brandt, Harry Callahan, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Robert Adams, and William Eggleston.
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, June 1866,  National Gallery of Art, Washington

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), Summer Days, 1866,  National Gallery of Art, Washington


Nadar (1820-1910), Honore Daumier, 1856/1858
National Gallery of Art, Washington

In conjunction with the exhibition, another one, The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, (through September 13, 2015) expands the presentation in adjoining galleries with 76 works by international artists.

The people are grateful to the Trellis Fund for making the exhibition possible. 

What:  In Light of the Past: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography at the National Gallery of Art

When: Sunday, July 26, 2015, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where: Ground Floor, West Building, National Gallery of Art, between Third and Seventh streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.  (Closest exhibition entrance is on Seventh Street.)

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215