Exhibition: ‘WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston – Posting Part 4

Exhibition dates: 11th November, 2012 – 3rd February, 2013

Curators: Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography; Will Michels, collections photographer and exhibition co-curator; Natalie Zelt, curatorial assistant

**Please be aware that there are graphic photographs in this posting.**

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Under blue & gray – Gettysburg' July 1913 from the exhibition 'WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - Posting Part 4, November 2012 - February 2013

 

Anonymous photographer
Under blue & gray – Gettysburg
July 1913
Photo shows the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

 

 

Part 4 of the biggest posting on one exhibition that I have ever undertaken on Art Blart!

As befits the gravity of the subject matter this posting is so humongous that I have had to split it into 4 separate postings. This is how to research and stage a contemporary photography exhibition that fully explores its theme. The curators reviewed more than one million photographs in 17 countries, locating pictures in archives, military libraries, museums, private collections, historical societies and news agencies; in the personal files of photographers and service personnel; and at two annual photojournalism festivals producing an exhibition that features 26 sections (an inspired and thoughtful selection) that includes nearly 500 objects that illuminate all aspects of WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY.

I have spent hours researching and finding photographs on the Internet to support the posting. It has been a great learning experience and my admiration for photographers of all types has increased. I have discovered the photographs and stories of new image makers that I did not know and some enlightenment along the way. I despise war, I detest the state and the military that propagate it and I surely hate the power, the money and the ethics of big business that support such a disciplinarian structure for their own ends. I hope you meditate on the images in this monster posting, an exhibition on a subject matter that should be consigned to the history books of human evolution.

**Please be aware that there are graphic photographs in all of these postings.**Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for allowing me to publish some of the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Memorials

25. Photographs in the “Memorials” section range from the tomb of an unknown World War I soldier in England, by Horace Nicholls; and a landscape of black German crosses throughout a World War II burial site, by Bertrand Carrière; to an anonymous photograph of a reunion scene in Gettysburg of the opposing sides in the Civil War; and Joel Sternfeld’s picture of a woman and her daughter at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1986. (8 images)

 

Horace Nicholls (English, 1867-1941) 'The Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, London, November 1920' 1920 from the exhibition 'WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - Posting Part 4, November 2012 - February 2013

 

Horace Nicholls (English, 1867-1941)
The Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, London, November 1920
1920
Silver gelatin print
© IWM (Q 31514)

 

In order to commemorate the many soldiers with no known grave, it was decided to bury an ‘Unknown Warrior’ with all due ceremony in Westminster Abbey on Armistice Day in 1920. The photograph shows the coffin resting on a cloth in the nave of Westminster Abbey before the ceremony at the Cenotaph and its final burial.

 

Bertrand Carrière (Canadian, b. 1957)
'Untitled' 2005-2009

 

Bertrand Carrière (Canadian, b. 1957)
Untitled
2005-2009
From the series Lieux Mêmes [Same Places]

 

In 2005, Carrière and historian Guth Desprez started to investigate the deeper history surrounding the found photo album. They travelled to Europe, with the photo album as their guide, in order to retrace the path of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. By photographing the locations in the soldier’s images, Carrière explores the themes of memory and history through the changing landscape. They visited the long list of places marked by the horrendous battles of The Great War: the Somme in Picardy, Artois in the North Pas-de-Calais and up to the vast fields of Flanders in Belgium. Carrière’s photographs document the sites which appear in the soldier’s album along with others on the Western Front, offering a contemporary view approximately 90 years after the infamous events, which continue to stigmatise these locations to this very day. The incredible light of the regions of northern France and the flatness of the land helps Carrière build a sense of mystery. The photographs initiate dialogue about how the landscape was affected and the ways in which it has recovered. It is not only what is there or the evidence that remains, but also what is not there and the evidence of what no longer exists.

Text from the Stephen Bulger Gallery website

 

Joel Sternfeld (American, b. 1944) 'Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.,' May 1986

 

Joel Sternfeld (American, b. 1944)
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.,
May 1986
Chromogenic print, ed. #1/25 (printed October 1986)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Target Collection of American Photography, gift of the artist
© 1986 Joel Sternfeld

 

Remembrance

26. The last gallery in the exhibition is “Remembrance.” Most of these images were taken by artists seeking to come to terms with a conflict after fighting had ceased. Included are Richard Avedon’s picture of a Vietnamese napalm victim; a survivor of a machete attack in a Rwandan death camp, by James Nachtwey; a 1986 portrait of a hero who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, by Houston native Gay Block; and Suzanne Opton’s 2004 portrait of a soldier who survived the Iraq War and returned to the United States to work as a police officer, only to be murdered on duty by a fellow veteran. The final wall features photographs by Simon Norfolk of sunrises at the five D-Day beaches in 2004. The only reference to war is the title of the series: The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World (33 images)

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) 'Napalm Victim #1, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 29, 1971' 1971

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Napalm Victim #1, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 29, 1971
1971
Silver gelatin print
© Richard Avedon

 

Gay Block (American, b.1942) 'Zofia Baniecka, Poland' 1986

 

Gay Block (American, b. 1942)
Zofia Baniecka, Poland
1986
From the series Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, a record of non-Jewish citizens from European countries who risked their lives helping to hide Jews from the Nazis
Chromogenic print, printed 1994
Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Clinton T. Wilour in honour of Eve France

 

Zofia Baniecka (born 1917 in Warsaw – 1993) was a Polish member of the Resistance during World War II. In addition to relaying guns and other materials to resistance fighters, Baniecka and her mother rescued over 50 Jews in their home between 1941 and 1944.

 

James Nachtwey (American, b. 1948) 'A Hutu man who did not support the genocide had been imprisoned in the concentration camp, was starved and attacked with machetes. He managed to survive after he was freed and was placed in the care of the Red Cross, Rwanda, 1994' 1994

 

James Nachtwey (American, b. 1948)
A Hutu man who did not support the genocide had been imprisoned in the concentration camp, was starved and attacked with machetes. He managed to survive after he was freed and was placed in the care of the Red Cross, Rwanda, 1994
1994
Silver gelatin print
© James Nachtwey / TIME

World Press Photo of the Year, prize singles

 

A Hutu man at a Red Cross hospital in Nyanza, Rwanda. His face was mutilated by the Hutu ‘Interahamwe’ militia, who suspected him of sympathising with the Tutsi rebels.

Liberated from a nearby Hutu camp, where mainly Tutsis were incarcerated, starved, beaten, and killed, this man did not support the genocide and was thus subjected to the same treatment. Starved and attacked with machetes, he had managed to survive, though he was unable to speak and could barely walk or swallow when this photo was made.

Jibran Abbasi. “Mutilated By The Hutu ‘Interahamwe’ by James Nachtwey,” on the Business Recorder website April 5, 2017 [Online] Cited 27/07/2024

 

Simon Norfolk (British, b. Nigeria, 1963) 'Sword Beach' 2004

 

Simon Norfolk (British born Nigeria, b. 1963)
Sword Beach
2004
From the series The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World
Chromogenic print, ed. #1/10 (printed 2006)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Gift of Bari and David Fishel, Brooke and Dan Feather and Hayley Herzstein in honor of Max Herzstein and a partial gift of the artist and Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica
© Simon Norfolk / Gallery Luisotti

 

 

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY Extended Info

 

Other photographs from the exhibition

 

Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) 'Scouts and Guides to the Army of the Potomac, Berlin, MD, October, 1862' October 1862 (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882)
Scouts and Guides to the Army of the Potomac, Berlin, MD, October, 1862
October 1862
Albumen silver print
Photograph by Alexander Gardner, from “Incidents of the War. Guide to the Army of the Potomac,” from Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Washington
Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, Record Group 165, National Archives Still Picture Branch, College Park, Maryland

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) ‘The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania’. Albumen paper print

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882)
The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter / Dead Confederate soldier in the devil’s den, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
July 1863
Albumen paper print copied from glass, wet collodion negative
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

 

Josiah Barnes (Australian, 1858-1921) 'Embarkation of HMAT Ajana, Melbourne, July 8, 1916' 1916

 

Josiah Barnes (Australian, 1858-1921)
Embarkation of HMAT Ajana, Melbourne, July 8, 1916
1916
Gelatin silver print from original glass half-plate negative (printed 2012)
On loan from the Australian War Memorial

 

Wesley D. Archer (American, d. 1952) 'Just as he left the burning plane' 1933

 

Wesley D. Archer (American, d. 1952)
Just as he left the burning plane
1933
From the publication Death in the Air: The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot

 

The typewritten script of a First World War pilot’s diary with a large number of photographs was submitted to the publishers William Heinemann and published by them in 1933. Heinemann stated on the book’s jacket that the diary contained no names, dates, or anything that could reveal the identity of the writer or the squadron in which he served. The publishers understood that the diarist was killed in action in 1918 and that it was in deference to the wishes of those who were close to him that his diary should be published.

So remarkable were the photographs that their veracity was immediately questioned, but no proof of their authenticity or otherwise could be ascertained. It was not until 1983 that a collection of documents, photographs and artifacts was presented to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Some of the photographs were recognized as being those of the mystery diarist and the truth was soon revealed.

The author was Wesley Archer, an American with Canadian parents who served with the RFC in the First World War, and the photographs and diary had been faked.

Text from the Google Books website

For more information on the faked photographs see the article “How dramatic images of WWI dogfights in the skies of Europe were FAKED by a conman who was just looking to make some money”.

 

August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Soldier' c. 1940

 

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Soldier
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print, printed by Gunther Sander, 1960s
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Gift of John S. and Nancy Nolan Parsley in honour of the 65th birthday of Anne Wilkes Tucker
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK StiftungKultur – August Sander Archiv, Cologne; DACS, London 2012

 

Arkady Shaikhet (Soviet, 1898-1959) 'Partisan Girl' 1942

 

Arkady Shaikhet (Soviet, 1898-1959)
Partisan Girl
1942
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Marion Mundy
© Arkady Shaikhet Estate, Moscow

 

Anonymous photographer / U.S. Department of Defense. 'US Coast Guard crew of cutter Spencer watched as a depth charge exploded near U-175, North Atlantic, 500nm WSW of Ireland, 17 Apr 1943'

 

Anonymous photographer
U.S. Department of Defense
US Coast Guard crew of cutter Spencer watched as a depth charge exploded near U-175, North Atlantic, 500nm WSW of Ireland, 17 Apr 1943
17 April 1943
Public domain

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978) 'Wounded, dying infant found by American soldier in Saipan Mountains' June 1944

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978)
Wounded, dying infant found by American soldier in Saipan Mountains
June 1944
Gelatin silver print
© W. Eugene Smith

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978) 'World War II. The Pacific Campaign. The Battle of Iwo Jima (Japanese island). US Marine demolition team blasting out a cave on Hill 382. Iwo Jima. February, 1945' 1945

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978)
World War II. The Pacific Campaign. The Battle of Iwo Jima (Japanese island). US Marine demolition team blasting out a cave on Hill 382. Iwo Jima. February, 1945
1945
Gelatin silver print
© W. Eugene Smith

 

Joseph Schwartz (American, 1913–2013) 'Hold the Phone - Two Marine wiremen on Iwo Jima race across an open field, under heavy enemy fire to establish field telephone contact with the front lines' February 19, 1945, printed early 1950s

 

Joseph Schwartz (American, 1913–2013)
Hold the Phone – Two Marine wiremen on Iwo Jima race across an open field, under heavy enemy fire to establish field telephone contact with the front lines
February 19, 1945, printed early 1950s
Gelatin silver print mounted on board
18 13/16 x 14 15/16 in. (47.8 x 37.9cm)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum purchase funded by Knox Nunnally at “One Great Night in November, 2009,” in honor of Houston trial lawyer Joe Reynolds, a U.S. Marine who fought on Iwo Jima

 

Anonymous photographer. U.S. Department of Defense / USMC Official Photograph 'PLASMA WARD – Navy doctors and corpsmen administer to wounded Marines at an aid station established in a gully on Iwo Jima. The high casualty rate in this operation required the use of gallons of plasma and whole blood sent by air from the West Coast' 1945

 

Anonymous photographer
U.S. Department of Defense / USMC Official Photograph
PLASMA WARD – Navy doctors and corpsmen administer to wounded Marines at an aid station established in a gully on Iwo Jima. The high casualty rate in this operation required the use of gallons of plasma and whole blood sent by air from the West Coast
1945
Gelatin silver print
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

 

U.S. Navy Photographic Team. 'U.S. and British Warships Anchored in Sagami Wan, Outside of Tokyo Bay, Japan, on the Day the Allied Ships Entered Japanese Waters' 27th August 1945

 

U.S. Navy Photographic Team
U.S. and British Warships Anchored in Sagami Wan, Outside of Tokyo Bay, Japan, on the Day the Allied Ships Entered Japanese Waters
27th August 1945
Gelatin silver print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by Laura and Tony Visage in honor and memory of William A. Visage and his fellow soldiers in Battery “E” of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, U.S. Army Air Corps

 

Matsumoto Eiichi (Japanese, 1915-2004) 'Shadow of a soldier remaining on the wooden wall of the Nagasaki military headquarters (Minami-Yamate machi, 4.5km from Ground Zero)' 1945

 

Matsumoto Eiichi (Japanese, 1915-2004)
Shadow of a soldier remaining on the wooden wall of the Nagasaki military headquarters (Minami-Yamate machi, 4.5km from Ground Zero)
1945
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Matsumoto Eiichi

 

Unknown photographer. 'A pair of M-40 155mm Gun Motor Carriages of Battery B, 937th Field Artillery Battalion, providing fire support to U.S. Army 25th Infantry Division, Munema, Korea' 26 November 1951

 

Unknown photographer
A pair of M-40 155mm Gun Motor Carriages of Battery B, 937th Field Artillery Battalion, providing fire support to U.S. Army 25th Infantry Division, Munema, Korea
26 November 1951
Gelatin silver print
U.S. Department of Defense

 

Cathy LeRoy (French, 1944-2006) 'Corpsman In Anguish' 1967

 

Cathy LeRoy (French, 1944-2006)
Corpsman In Anguish
1967
Gelatin silver print

 

Her pictures from Vietnam were stunning. Her photos from Battle of Hill 881 evoked “ghosts of Iwo Jima and Pork Chop Hill,” Time magazine wrote in May 1967. Her photos of corpsman Vernon Wike during the battle was a triptych of an all-too-familiar scene: in the first, Wike has two hands on his friend’s chest, trying to staunch the wound; in the second, he tries to find a heartbeat; in the third frame, “Corpsman In Anguish”, he realised the man is dead.

LeRoy herself came very close to death two weeks later. Her Nikon barely stopped a piece of mortar shrapnel that ripped open her chest. She said that she thought the last words she would ever hear were, “I think she’s dead, sarge.” During the Tet offensive in 1968, LeRoy was briefly captured by the North Vietnamese during the battle for Hue. LeRoy’s photos of her captivity later made the cover of Life, ‘A Remarkable Day in Hue: the Enemy Lets Me Take His Picture’. She was the first person to take photos of North Vietnamese Army Regulars behind their lines.

Anonymous. “Corpsman In Anguish | Cathy LeRoy,” on the Iconic Photos website January 13, 2014 [Online] Cited 27/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

A licensed parachutist, Leroy jumped with the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade into combat during Operation Junction City in February of 1967. It was in this action, the battle for Hill 881, that Leroy photographed U.S. Navy Corpsman Vernon Wike as he rushed to the aid of a fallen comrade. “Corpsman in anguish” is the third frame of a series that Leroy shot, capturing the unimaginable grief of war. Later, in an interview for the documentary “The Hill Fights”, Wike recounted the moment that Leroy photographed.

“I know there was chaos going on around me, but there was no sound,” she says. “… I knew he didn’t have a chance, but I still got p—–d off when he died.” Leroy describes the aftermath as the corpsman “lost in this nightmare landscape” grabbed the fallen marine’s M16 and charged a Viet bunker alone in a hail of obscenities. The fallen marine was a man called “Rock”, a New Yorker from Puerto Rico. Earlier that day he had told Wike that he only had 60 days left “in country” – his deployment in Vietnam.

Anonymous. “Giving War a Face: Catherine Leroy,” on the Dismal Nitch website September 04, 2020 [Online] Cited 27/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Arkady Shaikhet (Soviet, 1898-1959) 'Partisan Girl' 1942

 

Philip Jones Griffiths (Welsh, 1936-2008)
Called “Little Tiger” for killing two “Viet Cong women cadre” – his mother and teacher, it was rumored, Vietnam​
1968
Gelatin silver print
The Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery
© Philip Jones Griffiths / Magnum Photos

 

Gilles Caron (French, 1939-1970) 'Young Catholic demonstrator on Londonderry Wall, Northern Ireland' 1969

 

Gilles Caron (French, 1939-1970)
Young Catholic demonstrator on Londonderry Wall, Northern Ireland
1969
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy of Foundation Gilles Caron and Contact Press Images
© Gilles Caron

 

Rafael Wollmann (Argentinian, b. 1958) 'British Marines surrender to Argentinean troops in Malvinas/Falklands' April 2, 1982, printed 2012

 

Rafael Wollmann (Argentinian, b. 1958)
British Marines surrender to Argentinean troops in Malvinas/Falklands
April 2, 1982, printed 2012
Inkjet print
15 7/8 × 20 in. (40.4 × 50.8cm)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Gift of Rafael Wollmann

 

David Leeson (American, b. 1957) 'Death of a Soldier, Iraq' March 24, 2003

 

David Leeson (American, b. 1957)
Death of a Soldier, Iraq
March 24, 2003
Inkjet print, printed 2012
Courtesy of the artist

 

Ziv Koren (Israeli, b. 1970) 'A sniper’s-eye view of Rafah, in the Southern Gaza strip, during an Israeli military sweep' 2006

 

Ziv Koren (Israeli, b. 1970)
A sniper’s-eye view of Rafah, in the Southern Gaza strip, during an Israeli military sweep
2006
Inkjet print, printed 2012
© Ziv Koren/Polaris Images

 

Goran Tomasevic (Serbian, b. 1959) /Reuters. 'SHOOTING. Sgt. William Olas Bee, a US Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured.' 2008

 

Goran Tomasevic (Serbian, b. 1959) /Reuters
SHOOTING. Sgt. William Olas Bee, a US Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured.
2008

 

Tomašević began photographing the war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia from 1991 for daily newspaper Politika. In 1996 he joined the world’s largest news agency, Reuters, covering the simmering political tensions in Kosovo and the anti-Milošević demonstrations in his hometown of Belgrade since mid-1990s. During three-month NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Tomašević was the only photographer working for foreign press to spend the duration of the conflict in Kosovo.

Tomašević moved to Jerusalem in 2002, covering the second Palestinian intifada. During the U.S. led invasions of Iraq in 2003, his picture of a U.S. Marine watching the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue became one of the most memorable images of the war. He often returned to Iraq as sectarian violence escalated and regularly photographed America’s other war in Afghanistan. His sequence of photographs of U.S. Marine Sergeant Bee narrowly escaping Taliban bullets became an iconic image in U.S. war history.

Tomašević moved to Cairo in 2006 and was at the heart of Reuters’ coverage of the Arab Springs. In Libya, his image of a fireball that spewed up after an air strike on pro-Gaddafi fighters became an iconic image of the Libyan war, gracing the front pages of more than 100 newspapers around the globe. He stayed in Cairo until 2012. His raw pictures of rebel fighters battling pro-Assad forces among the ruins of Aleppo and Damascus during the Syrian Civil War have won international acclaim, as did his coverage of the bloody siege on a Nairobi shopping mall in Kenya. Tomašević worked for Reuters until 2022.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
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Public talk: ‘This is not my favourite photograph’ by Dr Marcus Bunyan part of ‘What makes a great photograph?’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy

Wednesday 5th December, 2012

 

We were asked to choose our favourite photograph, one that we could nominate as a great photograph. I chose a slightly different take on proceedings.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to my fellow speakers for their talks and to Director of the Centre for Contemporary Photography Naomi Cass for inviting me to speak at a wonderful evening. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882)
Lewis Paine
26th April, 1865
Albumen silver print from a Collodion glass plate negative

 

 

This is not my favourite photograph

A minute’s silence…

 

This is not my favourite photograph
Nor may it be a great photograph…
More interestingly to me, it is a remarkable photograph – one that you are able to make remarks on.
It is also a photograph that has haunted me for years.
Taken by Alexander Gardner in April 1865, this photograph is a portrait of Lewis Thornton Powell (aka Lewis Payne or Paine) who was one of the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln which had happened the same month. The photograph has a background of dark metal, and was taken on one of the ironclads U.S.S. Montauk or Saugus, where the conspirators were for a time confined. Paine was executed in July 1865 just eight short weeks later.

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' 26th April, 1865

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882)
Three photographs of Lewis Paine
26th April, 1865

 

This is the triptych of photographs by Gardner in the form they are usually displayed, like a three-panel renaissance altar-piece. The left and right hand photographs were taken within minutes of each other, with the camera in the same position, whereas in the centre photograph the camera has been lowered to show more of the body, and the image has been cropped at the top. In the central plate the figure of Paine has been raised up in the frame – almost prematurely brought back to life by his placement.
The centre image is the only one where Paine stares directly at the camera. He surveys the viewer with a gaze I find enigmatic.

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

This is a very modern face, a very contemporary face. His hair is just like Justin Beiber’s.
Who brushed his hair across for this picture, and would it normally be this long, or has it just been ignored because of his fate?
He still has good muscle tone – has he been exercising in his cell?
And finally his clothing – is it navy issue, as his top appears to have been given to him, perhaps the coarse, navy blue wool of the Northern states.
 
Noel Cordle. 'Hot Dead Guys: Lewis Powell' Posted on September 5th, 2010

 

Noel Cordle
Hot Dead Guys: Lewis Powell
Posted on September 5th, 2010
Mere Musings blog [Online] Cited 01/12/2012 no longer available online

 

There’s even a web page dedicated to him on “hot dead guys” where there’s that awkward moment when one of Lincoln’s conspirators is so sexy its ridiculous…
He wasn’t all bad. Biographers of Powell describe him as a quiet, introverted boy who enjoyed fishing and caring for sick and injured animals. Apparently, Lewis was an intelligent, sensitive, soul with great potential.

 

Descriptions of Lewis from "The Life, Crime and Capture"

 

Descriptions of Lewis from “The Life, Crime and Capture”

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

.

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882)
Lewis Paine (detail)
26th April, 1865
Albumen silver print from a Collodion glass plate negative

 

Could we say that he is left-handed given the different size of his fingers (?)

 

Roland Barthes (French, 1915-1980) 'Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire)' 1980

 

Roland Barthes (French, 1915-1980)
Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire)
1980

 

Roland Barthes in his seminal work Camera Lucida said in Section 39: “He is dead and he is going to die…
“The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the same time: this will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the pose, the photograph tells me death in the future. What pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence.”

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

If we were to place this image within the metaphysical school of photography which peaked with Paul Caponigro and Minor White we could say:
Hovering above his head, has his spirit already begun to leave his body?

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865

 

One reading of his gaze is that he is really interested in what the photographer is doing – almost the gaze of an apprentice wanting to apply these skills in the future.
Given his fate is he insane because of his interest?
What is really going on in his mind – what is his perspective?
Another reading could be as looking out to the future in the hope of finding that he will be judged in another way.
And another is the immediacy of his gaze – it is a gaze that is happening now!
The other thing that I find quite mysterious is the distance of the photographer from the subject.
Was it fear that stopped him getting any closer or are there deck fittings we cannot see that prevented his approach?

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

What brought Paine to this place?

Michel Foucault calls the methods and techniques through which human beings constitute themselves, “Technologies of the self.” Foucault argued that we as subjects are perpetually engaged in processes whereby we define and produce our own ethical self-understanding. According to Foucault, technologies of the self are the forms of knowledge and strategies that “permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of immortality.”1
As we look into his eyes he knows that we know he is going to die, has already died but the intensity of that knowledge is brought into present time. What Paine emanates is a form of i-mortality.
I wonder, did Gardner ever show him the finished photographs before he died?

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

This is Barthes anterior future, a moment where truth is interpreted in the mind of the photographer, not out there but in here [points to head and heart], where past, present and future coalesce into single point in time – his death and our death are connected through his gaze, the knowledge of our discontinuity. Eons contracted into an eternal moment.
In this moment in time, what we are doing is we are making a list about the human condition when we talk about something that is remarkable. We are moving towards a language that defines the human condition…

 

Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) 'Lewis Paine' April 1865 (detail)

 

But ultimately language can never fully describe the human condition, much as it may try… and this is why this photograph is remarkable, because it is ineffable, unknowable.
This photograph inhabits you, it haunts you like few others.
Early Wittgenstein described a world of facts pictured by thoughts. He said, “Don’t Think, But Look!”
I would add “Don’t think, but feel and look”

This photograph is a memoriam to a young man and his present death. As such it is a REMARKABLE photograph that haunts us all.

 

Dr Marcus Bunyan
December 2012

 

1/ Foucault, Michel. “Technologies of the self,” in L. H. Martin, H. Gutman and P. H. Hutton (eds.). Technologies of the self. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, p. 18.

 

Postscript

George Cook (American, 1819-1902) 'Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie, S.C.,' 8th September 1863

 

George Cook (American, 1819-1902)
Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie, S.C., (detail)
8th September 1863

 

“On the highest point of the battered dust heap that was the still untaken fortress of Sumter. the Confederate photographer, Cook, planted his camera on September 8, 1863, and took the first photograph of ironclads in action – the monitors W’echaten. Montauk and Passaic. as they were actually firing on the Confederate batteries at Fort Moultrie. The three low-freeboarded vessels, lying almost bows-on, at the distance of nearly two miles, look like great iron buoys in the channel, but the smoke from their heavy guns is drifting over the water, and the flames can almost be seen leaping from the turret ports. Although Fort Moultrie was the aim of their gunners, Cook, with his head under the dark cloth, saw on the ground glass a shell passing within a few feet of him. Another shell knocked one of plate-holders off the parapet into the rain-water cistern. He gave a soldier five dollars to fish it out for him. He got his picture – and was ordered off the parapet, since he was drawing upon the fort the fire of all the Union batteries on Morris Island. It seems incredible that such a daring photographic feat, and one of such historic interest, could have remained unpublished for nearly half a century – until one recalls the absence of any satisfactory method for reproducing photographs direct during the generation succeeding the war. Before photo-engraving became perfected, thirty years or more had passed, and most of the few negatives taken by Confederates had vanished through fire, loss, and breakage. Fortunately, this has been preserved one of the most vivid of any war.”

Francis Trevelyan Miller. “First Preface: Photographing The Civil War,” in The Photographic History of The Civil War In Ten Volumes. New York: The Review of Reviews, 1911, p. 24.

 

George Cook (American, 1819-1902) 'Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie, S.C.,' 8th September 1863

 

George Cook (American, 1819-1902)
Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie, S.C.,
8th September 1863
Photo courtesy of the Cook Collection, Valentine Richmond History

 

George Cook’s photograph of Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie, S.C., believed to be the world’s first combat photograph. Monitors engage Confederate batteries on Sullivan’s Island, Charleston, South Carolina. Photographed from one of the Confederate emplacements, the ships are identified as (from left to right): Weehawken, Montauk and Passaic. The monitor on the right appears to be firing its guns. Date is given as 8 September 1863, when other U.S. Navy ships were providing cover for Weehawken, which had gone aground on the previous day. She was refloated on the 8th after receiving heavy gunfire from the Confederate fortifications.

 

Kilburn Brothers (Edward and Benjamin Kilburn, American) 'Four monitors laid up in the Anacostia River, off the Washington Navy Yard' c. 1866

 

Kilburn Brothers (Edward and Benjamin Kilburn, American)
Four monitors laid up in the Anacostia River, off the Washington Navy Yard
c. 1866
Ships are (from left to right): USS Mahopac, USS Saugus, USS Montauk (probably), and either USS Casco or USS Chimo
Photo mounted on a stereograph card, marked: “Photographed and published by Kilburn Brothers, Littleton, N.H.”

 

Anonymous photographer. ''Montauk' at left, and 'Lehigh' at right, laid up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania' c. late 1902 or early 1903

 

Anonymous photographer
‘Montauk’ at left, and ‘Lehigh’ at right, laid up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania
c. late 1902 or early 1903
U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Saugus, in Trent's Reach on the James River, Virginia' c. early 1865

 

Anonymous photographer
Saugus, in Trent’s Reach on the James River, Virginia
c. early 1865
Note the mine sweeping “rake” attached to her bow
U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Officers pose on deck of the Saugus, in front of the gun turret, probably while the ship was serving on the James River, Virginia' c. early 1865

 

Anonymous photographer
Officers pose on deck of the Saugus, in front of the gun turret, probably while the ship was serving on the James River, Virginia
c. early 1865
Note ship’s bell and other details of the turret and deck fittings
U.S. Naval Historical Center photograph

 

 

Centre for Contemporary Photography

No permanent exhibition space at the moment

Centre for Contemporary Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 3rd April – 26th August 2012

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017) 'Yves Saint Laurent, Paris' 1968

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017)
Yves Saint Laurent, Paris
1968
Dye colour diffusion [Polaroid ®] print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Marie Cosindas

 

 

On the Nature of Photography

 

“To get from the tangible to the intangible (which mature artists in any medium claim as part of their task) a paradox of some kind has frequently been helpful. For the photographer to free himself of the tyranny of the visual facts upon which he is utterly dependent, a paradox is the only possible tool. And the talisman paradox for unique photography is to work “the mirror with a memory” as if it were a mirage, and the camera is a metamorphosing machine, and the photograph as if it were a metaphor… Once freed of the tyranny of surfaces and textures, substance and form [the photographer] can use the same to pursue poetic truth.”


Minor White quoted in Beaumont Hewhall (ed.,). The History of Photography. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1982, p. 281

 

“Carol Jerrems and I taught at the same secondary school in the 1970’s. In a classroom that was unused at that time, I remember having my portrait taken by her. She held her Pentax to her eye. Carols’ portraits all seemed to have been made where the posing of her subjects was balanced by an incisive naturalness (for want of a better description). As a challenge to myself I tried to look “natural”, but kept in my consciousness that I was having my portrait taken. Minutes passed and neither she nor her camera moved at all.

Then the idea slipped from my mind for just a moment, and I was straightaway bought back by the sound of the shutter. What had changed in my face? – probably nothing, or 1 mm of muscle movement. Had she seen it through the shutter? Or something else – I don’t know.”


Australian artist Ian Lobb on being photographed by the late Carol Jerrems

 

 

There is always something that you can’t quite put your finger on in an outstanding portrait, some ineffable other that takes the portrait into another space entirely. I still haven’t worked it out but my thoughts are this: forget about the pose of the person. It would seem to me to be both a self conscious awareness by the sitter of the camera and yet at the same time a knowing transcendence of the visibility of the camera itself. In great portrait photography it is almost as though the conversation between the photographer and the person being photographed elides the camera entirely. Minor White, in his three great mantras, the Three Canons, observes:

 

Be still with yourself
Until the object of your attention
Affirms your presence

Let the Subject generate its own Composition

When the image mirrors the man
And the man mirrors the subject
Something might take over

 

Freed from the tyranny of the visual facts something else emerges.

Celebrities know only too well how to “work” the camera but the most profound portraits, even of celebrities, are in those moments when the photographer sees something else in the person being photographed, some unrecognised other that emerges from the shadows – a look, a twist of the head, the poignancy of the mouth, the vibrancy of the dancer Josephine Baker, the sturdiness of the gaze of Walt Whitman with hands in pockets, the presence of the hands (no, not the gaze!) of Picasso. I remember taking a black and white portrait of my partner Paul holding a wooden finial like a baby among some trees, a most beautiful, revealing photograph. He couldn’t bear to look at it, for it stripped him naked before the lens and showed a side of himself that he had never seen before: vulnerable, youthful, beautiful.

Why do great portrait photographers make so many great portraits? Why can’t this skill be shared or taught? Why can’t Herb Ritts (for example) make a portrait that goes beyond a caricature? Why is it that what can be taught is so banal that it has no value?

In photography, maybe we edit out what is expected and then it seems that photography does something that goes beyond language; it goes beyond function that can be described as a part of speech, metonym or metaphor. When this something else takes over I think it is truly “unrecognised” in the best portraits (and landscape / urban photographs) – and it is fantastic and wonderful.

This is my understanding, then, of perception and vision (when spirit takes over) – [which is] the ability to see this certain something in the mind (previsualisation) before seeing it through the viewfinder and to then be able to reveal it in the physicality of the print. It is a liminal moment in time and space.

I believe this is the reality of photography itself in its absolute essential form – and here I am deliberately forgetting about post-photography, post-modernism, modernism, pictorialism, ism, ism – getting down to why I really like photography:

the BEYOND visualisation of a world, the transcendence of time and space that leads, in great photographs, to a recognition of the discontinuous nature of life but in the end, to its ultimate persistence.

This is as close as I have got so far…

Dr Marcus Bunyan
August 2012


Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photograph for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Mariana Cook (American, b. 1955) 'Barack and Michelle Obama, Chicago' May 26, 1996

 

Mariana Cook (American, b. 1955)
Barack and Michelle Obama, Chicago
May 26, 1996
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017) 'Andy Warhol' 1966

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017)
Andy Warhol
1966
Dye colour diffusion [Polaroid ®] print
11.4 x 8.9cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Marie Cosindas

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017) 'Yves St Laurent' 1968

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1925-2017)
Yves St Laurent
1968
Dye colour diffusion [Polaroid ®] print
11.4 x 8.9cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Marie Cosindas

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) 'Grace Jones' 1984

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Grace Jones
1984
Polaroid Polacolor print
9.5 x 7.3cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© 2011 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Weston (American, 1889-1958) 'Igor Stravinsky' 1935

 

Edward Weston (American, 1889-1958)
Igor Stravinsky
1935
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Coy Watson Jr. (American, 1912-2009) 'Joe Louis – “The Brown Bomber”, Los Angeles, February 1935'

 

Coy Watson Jr. (American, 1912-2009)
Joe Louis – “The Brown Bomber”, Los Angeles, February 1935
1935
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Gloria Swanson' 1924

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Gloria Swanson
1924
Gelatin silver print
27.8 x 21.6cm (10 15/16 x 8 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Permission Joanna T. Steichen

 

 

Portraits of Renown surveys some of the visual strategies used by photographers to picture famous individuals from the 1840s to the year 2000. “This exhibition offers a brief visual history of famous people in photographs, drawn entirely from the Museum’s rich holdings in this genre,” says Paul Martineau, curator of the exhibition and associate curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “It also provides a broad historical context for the work in the concurrent exhibition Herb Ritts: L.A. Style, which includes a selection of Ritts’s best celebrity portraits.”

Photography’s remarkable propensity to shape identities has made it the leading vehicle for representing the famous. Soon after photography was invented in the 1830s, it was used to capture the likenesses and accomplishments of great men and women, gradually supplanting other forms of commemoration. In the twentieth century, the proliferation of photography and the transformative power of fame have helped to accelerate the desire for photographs of celebrities in magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and on the Internet. The exhibition is arranged chronologically to help make visible some of the overarching technical and stylistic developments in photography from the first decade of its invention to the end of the twentieth century.

A wide range of historical figures are portrayed in Portraits of Renown. A photograph by Alexander Gardner of President Lincoln documents his visit to the battlefield of Antietam during the Civil War. Captured by Nadar, a portrait of Alexander Dumas, best known for his novels The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, shows the author with an energetic expression, illustrating the lively personality that made his writing so popular. Baron Adolf De Meyer’s portrait of Josephine Baker, an American performer who became an international sensation at the Folies Bergère in Paris, showcases her comedic charm, a trait that proved central to her popularity as a performer. An iconic portrait of the silent screen actress, Gloria Swanson, created by Edward Steichen for Vanity Fair reveals both the intensity of its sitter and the skill of the artist. A picture of Pablo Picasso by his friend Man Ray portrays the master of Cubism with a penetrating gaze.

Yves St. Laurent, Andy Warhol, and Grace Jones are among the contemporary figures included in the exhibition. Fashion designer Yves St. Laurent was photographed by Marie Cosindas using instant color film by Polaroid. The photograph, made the year his first boutique in New York opened, graced the walls of the store for ten years. A Cosindas portrait of Andy Warhol shows the artist wearing dark sunglasses, which partially conceal his face. Warhol, who was fascinated by celebrity, delighted in posing public personalities like Grace Jones for his camera.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976) 'Pablo Picasso' 1934

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Pablo Picasso
1934
Gelatin silver print
25.2 x 20cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'James Joyce' 1928

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
James Joyce
1928
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Baron Adolf De Meyer (American born France, 1868-1946) 'Portrait of Josephine Baker' 1925

 

Baron Adolf De Meyer (American born France, 1868-1946)
Portrait of Josephine Baker
1925
Collotype print
39.1 x 39.7cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

In 1925 Josephine Baker, an American dancer from Saint Louis, Missouri, made her debut on the Paris stage in La Revue nègre (The Black Review) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, wearing nothing more than a skirt of feathers and performing her danse sauvage (savage dance). She was an immediate sensation in Jazz-Age France, which celebrated her perceived exoticism, quite the opposite of the reception she had received dancing in American choruses. American expatriate novelist Ernest Hemingway called Baker “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw – or ever will.”

Baron Adolf de Meyer, a society and fashion photographer, took this playful portrait in the year of Baker’s debut. Given the highly sexual nature of her stage persona, this portrait is charming and almost innocent; Baker’s personality is suggested by her face rather than her famous body.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'John Barrymore as Hamlet' 1922

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
John Barrymore as Hamlet
1922
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1964-1946) 'Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portrait' 1918

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1964-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait
1918
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Arnold Genthe (American born Germany, 1869-1942) 'Anna Pavlowa' about 1915

 

Arnold Genthe (American born Germany, 1869-1942)
Anna Pavlowa
about 1915
Gelatin silver print
33.5 × 25.2cm (13 3/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

The Russian ballerina Anna Pavlowa (or Pavlova) so greatly admired Arnold Genthe’s work that she made the unusual decision to visit his studio, rather than have him come to her rehearsals. The resulting portrait of the prolific dancer, leaping in mid-air, is the only photograph to capture Pavlowa in free movement. Genthe regarded this print as one of the best dance photographs he ever made.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Alvin Langdon Coburn (British born United States, 1882-1966) 'Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)' Negative December 21, 1908; print 1913

 

Alvin Langdon Coburn (British born United States, 1882-1966)
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
Negative December 21, 1908; print 1913
Photogravure
20.6 × 14.8cm (8 1/8 × 5 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) '[Self-Portrait]' Negative 1907; print 1930

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
[Self-Portrait]
Negative 1907; print 1930
Gelatin silver print
24.8 × 18.4cm (9 3/4 × 7 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Edward Steichen (American 1879-1973) 'Rodin The Thinker' 1902

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Rodin – Le Penseur (The Thinker)
1902
Gelatin-carbon print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Sarah Choate Sears (American, 1858-1935) '[Julia Ward Howe]' about 1890

 

Sarah Choate Sears (American, 1858-1935)
[Julia Ward Howe]
about 1890
Platinum print
23.5 × 18.6cm (9 1/4 × 7 5/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910) was an American poet and author, known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the original 1870 pacifist Mother’s Day Proclamation. She was also an advocate for abolitionism and a social activist, particularly for women’s suffrage.

 

Sarah Choate Sears (American, 1858-1935) 'John Singer Sargent' about 1890

 

Sarah Choate Sears (American, 1858-1935)
John Singer Sargent
about 1890
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Although John Singer Sargent was the most famous American portrait painter of his time, he apparently did not like to be photographed. The few photographs that exist show him at work, as he is here, sketching and puffing on a cigar. His friend Sarah Choate Sears, herself a painter of some note, drew many of her sitters for photographs from the same aristocratic milieu as Sargent did for his paintings.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon] (French, 1820-1910) '[Sarah Bernhardt as the Empress Theodora in Sardou's "Theodora"]' Negative 1884; print and mount about 1889

 

Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910)
[Sarah Bernhardt as the Empress Theodora in Sardou’s “Theodora”]
Negative 1884; print and mount about 1889
Albumen silver print
14.6 × 10.5 cm (5 3/4 × 4 1/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

J. Wood (American, active New York, New York 1870s-1880s) 'L.P. Federmeyer' 1879

 

J. Wood (American, active New York, New York 1870s-1880s)
L.P. Federmeyer
1879
Albumen silver print
14.8 × 10 cm (5 13/16 × 3 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879) 'Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen' 1864

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen
Negative 1864; print about 1875
Carbon print
24.1cm (9 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

This image of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) is one of the few known photographs of a female celebrity by Julia Margaret Cameron. Terry, the popular child actress of the British stage, was sixteen years old when Cameron made this image. This photograph was most likely taken just after she married the eccentric painter, George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), who was thirty years her senior. They spent their honeymoon in the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight where Cameron resided.

Cameron’s portrait echoes Watt’s study of Terry titled Choosing (1864, National Portrait Gallery, London). As in the painting, Terry is shown in profile with her eyes closed, an ethereal beauty in a melancholic dream state. In this guise, Terry embodies the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of womanhood rather than appearing as the wild boisterous teenager she was known to be. The round (“tondo”) format of this photograph was popular among Pre-Raphaelite artists.

Cameron titled another print of this image Sadness (see 84.XZ.186.52), which may suggest the realisation of a mismatched marriage. Terry’s anxiety is plainly evident – she leans against an interior wall and tugs nervously at her necklace. The lighting is notably subdued, leaving her face shadowed in doubt. In The Story of My Life (1909), Terry recalls how demanding Watts was, calling upon her to sit for hours as a model and giving her strict orders not to speak in front of distinguished guests in his studio.

This particular version was printed eleven years after Cameron first made the portrait. In order to distribute this image commercially, the Autotype Company of London rephotographed the original negative after the damage had been repaired. The company then made new prints using the durable, non-fading carbon print process. Thus, this version is in reverse compared to Sadness. Terry’s enduring popularity is displayed by the numerous photographs taken of her over the years. Along with the two portraits by Cameron, the Getty owns three more of Terry by other photographers.

Adapted from Julian Cox. Julia Margaret Cameron, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 12. ©1996 The J. Paul Getty Museum; with additions by Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2019.

 

Charles DeForest Fredricks (American, 1823-1894) '[Mlle Pepita]' 1863

 

Charles DeForest Fredricks (American, 1823-1894)
[Mlle Pepita]
1863
Albumen silver print
9 × 5.4cm (3 9/16 × 2 1/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819-1889) '[Rosa Bonheur]' 1861-1864

 

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819-1889)
[Rosa Bonheur]
1861-1864
Albumen silver print
8.4 × 5.2cm (3 5/16 × 2 1/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Rosa Bonheur, born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur (16 March 1822 – 25 May 1899), was a French artist, mostly a painter of animals (animalière) but also a sculptor, in a realist style. Her best-known paintings are Ploughing in the Nivernais, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848, and now at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and The Horse Fair (in French: Le marché aux chevaux), which was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 (finished in 1855) and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. Bonheur was widely considered to be the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, about 1823-1896) 'Walt Whitman' about 1870

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, about 1823-1896)
Walt Whitman
about 1870
Albumen silver print
14.6 x 10.3cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, about 1823-1896) 'Robert E. Lee' 1865

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, about 1823-1896)
Robert E. Lee
1865
Albumen silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

John Robert Parsons (British, about 1826-1909) '[Portrait of Jane Morris (Mrs. William Morris)]' Negative July 1865; print after 1900

 

John Robert Parsons (British, about 1826-1909)
[Portrait of Jane Morris (Mrs. William Morris)]
Negative July 1865; print after 1900
Gelatin silver print
22.9 × 19.2cm (9 × 7 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon] (French, 1820-1910) 'George Sand (Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin), Writer' c. 1865

 

Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910)
George Sand (Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin)
about 1865
Albumen silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dudevant, née Dupin, took the pseudonym George Sand in 1832. She was a successful Romantic novelist and a close friend of Nadar, and during the 1860s he photographed her frequently. Her writing was celebrated for its frequent depiction of working-class or peasant heroes. She was also a woman as renowned for her romantic liaisons as her writing; here she allowed Nadar to photograph her, devoid of coquettish charms but nevertheless a commanding presence.

This portrait is a riot of textural surfaces. The sumptuous satin of Sand’s gown and silken texture of her hair have a rich tactile presence. Her shimmering skirt melts into the velvet-draped support on which she leans, creating a visual triangle with the careful centre part of her wavy hair. The portrait details the exquisite laces, beads, and buttons of her gown, but her face, the apex of the triangle, is out of focus. Sand was apparently unable to remain perfectly still throughout the exposure, and the slight blurring of her facial features erases the unforgiving details that the years had drawn upon her.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Alexander Gardner (American born Scotland, 1821-1882) 'President Lincoln, United States Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, near Antietam, October 4, 1862'

 

Alexander Gardner (American born Scotland, 1821-1882)
President Lincoln, United States Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, near Antietam, October 4, 1862
1862
Albumen silver print
21.9 x 19.7cm (8 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Twenty-six thousand soldiers were killed or wounded in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, after which Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to retreat to Virginia. Just two weeks after the victory, President and Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln conferred with General McClernand and Allan Pinkerton, Chief of the nascent Secret Service, who had organised espionage missions behind Confederate lines.

Lincoln stands tall, front and centre in his stovepipe hat, his erect and commanding posture emphasised by the tent pole that seems to be an extension of his spine. The other men stand slightly apart in deference to their leader, in postures of allegiance with their hands covering their hearts. The reclining figure of the man at left and the shirt hanging from the tree are a reminder that, although this is a formally posed picture, Lincoln’s presence did not halt the camp’s activity, and no attempts were made to isolate him from the ordinary circumstances surrounding the continuing military conflict.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Alexander Gardner (American born Scotland, 1821-1882) 'President Lincoln, United States Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, near Antietam, October 4, 1862' (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (American born Scotland, 1821-1882)
President Lincoln, United States Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, near Antietam, October 4, 1862 (detail)
1862
Albumen silver print
21.9 x 19.7cm (8 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Pierre Louis Pierson (French, 1822-1913) 'Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial' about 1859

 

Pierre Louis Pierson (French, 1822-1913)
Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial
about 1859
Albumen silver print from a wet collodion glass negative
21 × 16cm (8 1/4 × 6 5/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

The Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III, sits strapped securely into a seat on his horse’s back, a model subject for the camera. An attendant at the left steadies the horse so that the little prince remains picture-perfect in the centre of the backdrop erected for the photograph. The horse stands upon a rug that serves as a formalising element, making the scene appear more regal. The Emperor Napoleon III himself stands off to the right in perfect profile, supervising the scene with his dog and forming a framing mirror-image of the horse and attendant on the other side.

Pierre-Louis Pierson placed his camera far enough back from the Prince to capture the entire scene and all the players, but this was not the version sold as a popular carte-de-visite. The carte-de-visite image was cropped so that only the Prince upon his horse was visible.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon] (French, 1820-1910) 'Alexander Dumas [père] (1802-1870) / Alexandre Dumas' 1855

 

Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910)
Alexander Dumas [père] (1802-1870) / Alexandre Dumas
1855
Salted paper print
Image (rounded corners): 23.5 x 18.7cm (9 1/4 x 7 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Public domain

 

The writer Alexander Dumas was Nadar’s boyhood idol. Nadar’s father had published Dumas’s first novel and play, and a portrait of Dumas hung in young Nadar’s room. The son of a French revolutionary general and a black mother, Dumas arrived in Paris from the provinces in 1823, poor and barely educated. Working as a clerk, he educated himself in French history and began to write. In 1829 he met with his first success; with credits including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, published in 1844 and 1845, respectively, his fame and popularity were assured.

Nadar was the first photographer to use photography to enhance the sitter’s reputation. Given Dumas’s popularity, this mounted edition print, signed and dedicated by him, was likely intended for sale.

Dumas is represented as a lively, vibrant man. The self-restraint of his crossed hands, resting on a chair that disappears into the shadows, seems like an attempt to contain an undercurrent of boundless energy that threatened to ruin the necessary stillness of the pose and appears to have found an outlet through Dumas’s hair. Around the time of this sitting, the prolific Dumas and Nadar were planning to collaborate on a theatrical spectacle, which was ultimately never staged.

Text from the J. Paul Getty website

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe' late May - early June 1849

 

Unknown maker (American)
Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe
1849
Daguerreotype
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Public domain

 

“A noticeable man clad in black, the fashion of the times, close-buttoned, erect, forward looking, something separate in his bearing … a beautifully poetic face.” ~ Basil L. Gildersleeve to Mary E. Phillips, 1915 (his childhood recollection of Poe)


Many of Edgar Allan Poe’s contemporaries described him as he appears in this portrait: a darkly handsome and intelligent man who possessed an unorthodox personality. Despite being acknowledged as one of America’s greatest writers of poetry and short stories, Poe’s life remains shrouded in mystery, with conflicting accounts about poverty, alcoholism, drug use, and the circumstances of his death in 1849. Like his life, Poe’s poems and short stories are infused with a sense of tragedy and mystery. Among his best-known works are: The RavenAnnabel Lee, and The Fall of the House of Usher.

This daguerreotype was made several months before Poe’s death at age 40. After his wife died two years earlier in 1847, Poe turned to two women for support and companionship. He met Annie Richmond at a poetry lecture that he gave when visiting Lowell, Massachusetts. Although she was married, they developed a deep, mutual affection. Richmond is thought to have arranged and paid for this portrait sitting. Poe is so forcibly portrayed that historians have described his appearance as disheveled, brooding, exhausted, haunted, and melancholic.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, relatively few daguerreotypes of notable poets, novelists, or painters have survived from the 1840s, and some of the best we have are by unknown makers. The art of the daguerreotype was one in which the sitter’s face usually took priority over the maker’s name, and many daguerreotypists failed to sign their works. This is the case with the Getty’s portrait of Poe.

Adapted from getty.edu, Interpretive Content Department, 2009; and Weston Naef, The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Photographs Collection (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 35. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

 

Charles Richard Meade (American, 1826-1858) 'Portrait of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre' 1848

 

Charles Richard Meade (American, 1826-1858)
Portrait of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
1848
Daguerreotype, hand-coloured
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Public domain

 

By New Year’s Day of 1840 – little more than one year after William Henry Fox Talbot had first displayed his photogenic drawings in London and just four to five months after the first daguerreotypes had been exhibited in Paris at the Palais d’Orsay in conjunction with a series of public demonstrations of the process – Daguerre’s instruction manual had been translated into at least four languages and printed in at least twenty-one editions. In this way, his well-kept secret formula and list of materials quickly spread to the Americas and to provincial locations all over Europe. Photography became a gold rush-like phenomenon, with as much fiction attached to it as fact.

Nowhere was the daguerreotype more enthusiastically accepted than in the United States. Charles R. Meade was the proprietor of a prominent New York photographic portrait studio. He made a pilgrimage to France in 1848 to meet the founder of his profession and while there became one of the very few people to use the daguerreotype process to photograph the inventor himself.

A daguerreotype was (and is) created by coating a highly polished silver plated sheet of copper with light sensitive chemicals such as chloride of iodine. The plate is then exposed to light in the back of a camera obscura. When first removed from the camera, the image is not immediately visible. The plate must be exposed to mercury vapours to “bring out” the image. The image is then “fixed” (or “made permanent on the plate”) by washing it in a bath of hyposulfite of soda. Finally it is washed in distilled water. Each daguerreotype is a unique image; multiple prints cannot be made from the metal plate.

Adapted from Weston Naef, The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Photographs Collection (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 33, © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum; with additions by Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2019.

 

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Lincoln, Life-Size’ at The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut

Exhibition dates: 13th February – 6th June, 2010

 Curators: Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, and Robin Garr, Director of Education, Bruce Museum

 

Many thankx to Mike Horyczun, Director of Public Relations and the Bruce Museum for allowing me to publish the images in the posting. Please click on the photographs for even larger version of the image.

Marcus

 

Alexander Hesler (American, 1823-1895) 'Abraham Lincoln' June 3,1860 Springfield, Illinois from the exhibition 'Lincoln, Life-Size' at The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, February - June, 2010

 

Alexander Hesler (American, 1823-1895)
Abraham Lincoln
June 3, 1860 Springfield, Illinois

 

Alexander Hesler or Hessler (1823-1895) was an American photographer active in the U.S. state of Illinois. He is best known for photographing, in 1858 and 1860, definitive iconic images of the beardless Abraham Lincoln. …

Hesler’s known portraits include photographs of the two chief Illinois political figures of his day, Lincoln and federal senator Stephen A. Douglas. In the 1860 presidential election, Lincoln’s friends took steps to have Hesler’s images copied and recirculated, cementing their stature as works of Lincoln image-making.

Hesler was an award-winning photographer whose goal was to create photographs of lasting artistic value. He was recognised for the quality of both his portrait work and his outdoor photography. Upon Hesler’s retirement in 1865, he transferred his Chicago studio and negatives to a fellow photographer, George Bucher Ayres. Several of Hesler’s best-known images of Lincoln are platinum prints produced by Ayres from Hesler negatives.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Preston Butler. 'Abraham Lincoln' August 13, 1860 Springfield, Illinois from the exhibition 'Lincoln, Life-Size' at The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, February - June, 2010

Preston Butler. 'Abraham Lincoln' August 13, 1860 Springfield, Illinois

 

Preston Butler
Abraham Lincoln
August 13, 1860 Springfield, Illinois
Ambrotype
Plate 5 3/4 x 4 1/2 in
Library of Congress

 

Abraham Lincoln as candidate for United States president. Half-length portrait, seated, facing front.

Thought to be the last beardless portrait of Lincoln, this photo was “made for the portrait painter, John Henry Brown, noted for his miniatures in ivory. … ‘There are so many hard lines in his face,’ wrote Brown in his diary, ‘that it becomes a mask to the inner man. His true character only shines out when in an animated conversation, or when telling an amusing tale. … He is said to be a homely man; I do not think so.'” (Source: Ostendorf, p. 62)

Published in: Lincoln’s photographs: a complete album / by Lloyd Ostendorf. Dayton, OH: Rockywood Press, 1998, pp. 62-63.

Between 1856, the year of Preston Butler’s arrival in Springfield, and Feb. 11, 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln departed from Springfield, Butler took at least 8 photographs of Lincoln and at least 1 photograph of Mary, Willie and Tad Lincoln. Also, in 1857 or 1858, Butler photographed each of the 4 sides of Springfield’s public square. These photographs are the primary source of information about the appearance of the public square in Lincoln’s Springfield.

 

Abraham B. Byers (American, 1836-1920) 'Abraham Lincoln' May 7, 1858 from the exhibition 'Lincoln, Life-Size' at The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, February - June, 2010

 

Abraham B. Byers (American, 1836-1920)
Abraham Lincoln
May 7, 1858 Beardstown, Illinois
Ambrotype

 

 

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, presents its newest exhibition Lincoln, Life-Size, from February 13, 2010, through June 6, 2010. The exhibition features photographs of Abraham Lincoln reproduced full size, hanging alongside original 19th-century images and artefacts that tell the story of Lincoln’s tumultuous presidency. The exhibition is drawn from the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection which it has on loan from the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. Lincoln, Life-Size is supported by Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust, New England Land Company, Ltd., a Committee of Honor co-chaired by Tom Clephane and Nat Day, and the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

Lincoln, Life-Size is organised by guest curator Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, and Robin Garr, Director of Education, Bruce Museum. Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., is the great-great-grandson of Frederick Hill Meserve one of this country’s premiere Lincoln collectors. Frederick Hill Meserve’s passion for Lincoln was ignited in the 1880s when his father, William Neal Meserve, who had served in the Civil War, asked him to hunt for photographs to illustrate his handwritten war diary. Five generations of the family have preserved this massive historical record over the past century.

The exhibition chronicles the toll of war etched into the face of our 16th president. Life-size enlargements of Lincoln’s portraits circle the entire central gallery. Visitors will experience what it was like to stand before him and look into his eyes. Beneath this facial timeline of his presidency is a selection of photographs of people who touched his life and events that nearly wore him out.

The show explores the time from Abraham Lincoln’s arrival in Washington in 1857 through his assassination in 1865. Photographs chronicle events as the war unfolds, his son dies, and he struggles with generals and mounting death tolls. In the photographs, Lincoln is revealed in a variety of poses, each bearing a significance that attests to the historic nature of his life, be it as he is grappling with emancipation or drafting words that would become sacred; serving as husband and father or being pulled in all directions by his constituents; and ultimately as he holds the country together throughout the turbulent times of the Civil War.

Highlights of the exhibition include Leonard Volk’s bronze life mask of Lincoln’s head and hands, glass negatives by Mathew Brady, original albumen war prints by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, and carte-de-visites of Lincoln, his family, his cabinet, and his generals. Viewers can study official government war maps, view a Thomas Nast drawing depicting the slavery issue, and walk around an early “triptych” photograph that portrays Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman, depending on where the viewer stands. An oversize “imperial” print shows Lincoln just days before delivering his Gettysburg address. In another imperial print a lab technician’s thumb print obliterates Lincoln at his second inaugural, but what is visible is a spectator in the crowd who appears to be John Wilkes Booth. Another photograph of Booth has these words written on the back side: “Recognize him and kill him.” Lincoln, Life-Size also include artefact related to Lincoln and his era.

“We have presented these works so that viewers can see how the toll the war and personal tragedies aged him during his years in office,” said Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. “In fact, he was just 56 years old when he was assassinated.” This is the first museum exhibition dedicated to the collection of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, which is now housed on the campus of SUNY Purchase. The recent book, Lincoln, Life-Size, co-authored by Phillip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. is available in the Bruce Museum Store. A full array of exhibition programming related to the exhibition is scheduled.

Text from the Bruce Museum website [Online] Cited 01/06/2010. No longer available online

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, c. 1822-1896) 'Abraham Lincoln' January 8, 1864 Washington, DC

 

Mathew B. Brady (American, c. 1822-1896)
Abraham Lincoln
January 8, 1864 Washington, DC
National Archives and Records Administration

 

Anthony Berger (American born Germany, 1832 - after 1897) 'Abraham Lincoln' February 9, 1864 Washington, DC

 

Anthony Berger (American born Germany, 1832 – after 1897)
Abraham Lincoln
February 9, 1864 Washington, DC
Collodion negative
Quarter-plate glass transparency
10.9 x 8.7cm (case)
Brady’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries
Library of Congress

 

This is one of a series of photographs that Anthony Berger took of President Abraham Lincoln at the Brady Gallery in Washington in the winter of 1864, as the Civil War dragged on. Modern albumen print from 1864 wet-plated collodion negative. National Portrait Gallery.

“The Famous Profile” by Anthony Berger, manager of Brady’s Gallery, Washington D.C., made direct from an original collodion negative in the Meserve collection (M-82). One of seven poses taken by Berger on Tuesday February 9, 1864, it is perhaps the most familiar of Lincoln profiles, a more handsome pose than its companion view (0-89) because Lincoln’s profile is less severe and his left eyebrow is more visible.

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856) 'Abraham Lincoln' November 8, 1863 Washington, DC

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln
November 8, 1863 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856) 'Abraham Lincoln' February 5, 1865 Washington, DC

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln
February 5, 1865 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

 

Alexander Gardner was a Scottish photographer who immigrated to the United States in 1856, where he began to work full-time in that profession. He is best known for his photographs of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and the execution of the conspirators to Lincoln’s assassination.

This is one of the last photos taken of Lincoln, who was assassinated ten weeks later, on April 14, 1865.

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856) 'Abraham Lincoln' February 5, 1865 Washington, DC (detail)

 

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln (detail)
February 5, 1865 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

 

 

The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays

The Bruce Museum website

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