Many thankx to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Richard Prince: Untitled (cowboy) presents two photographic series from the 2010s that are being publicly exhibited for the first time at LACMA. Continuing the artist’s career-long engagement with the motif of the cowboy, Untitled (cowboy), recently acquired by LACMA, and Untitled (original cowboy) achieve the grandeur of 19th-century history painting while also deconstructing the iconography of the American West. Once again challenging the conventional meanings and limits of the photographic medium, Prince reignites debates he sparked some 40 years ago.
In the mid-1970s, Prince was an aspiring painter working in Time Inc.’s tear sheet department, clipping texts for magazine writers. After he removed the articles, he was left with advertisements: glossy pictures of commodities, models, and other objects of desire. Between 1980 and 1992, Prince paid particular attention to the motif of the cowboy, as depicted in a series of advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes. Prince began to rephotograph the advertisements, cropping and enlarging them to make limited-edition prints as artworks of his own. Prince’s re-photography had an explosive effect on the art world, provoking lawsuits and setting auction records. With this controversial practice, he redefined what it means to “take” a photograph.
For his 2015-16 Untitled (cowboy) photographs, Prince revisited copies of TIME from the 1980s and 1990s using contemporary technology. In contrast to this studio-based manipulation, for the 2013 series Untitled (original cowboy) Prince went to Utah, seeking out quintessential viewpoints established by legions of photographers – tourists and artists alike – who preceded him. Extending his interrogation of this particular American protagonist into the era of Instagram, Prince demonstrates that the stakes around originality, appropriation, and truth in advertising are as high as ever.
Curators: Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator of Photography and Jane L. Aspinwall, Assistant Curator of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Sand Dunes, Carson Desert, Nevada 1867 Albumen print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Of all the photographers who accompanied the Western surveys of this era, O’Sullivan remains the most admired, studied and debated. This is a result of the distinctly individual quality of his seeing – his particular union of fact and point of view; his understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph. O’Sullivan’s work remains inspiring and instructive: the clues it holds – to the nature of photography, 19th-century visual culture and the construction of photographic history – challenge and enlarge each new generation of viewers.
~ Press release
About the only decent sized Timothy O’Sullivan photographs online are here on Art Blart – in this posting and one I did earlier of Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Although some of the photographs from the earlier posting are reproduced again here there are also four new ones, and for that we should be thankful for there are so few quality images to look at on the web.
Following my last posting where I ruminated on the nature of photography, we note that O’Sullivan’s understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph was embodied in his distinctly individual way of seeing. As the above quotation observes, this was “his particular union of fact and point of view.” With this in mind, the photograph I would like you to focus on in this posting is Cave-in, Gould & Curry Mine, Virginia City, Nevada (1868, below) – a prescient abstract expressionist photograph almost eighty years before their advent. The fallen beams remind me of huge ice crystals in a rock cave and then you notice the pick axe at top left and leg and booted foot at right. Hang on a minute, there is another foot tucked underneath!
To have the temerity to photograph this scene in this way and this point in time in the history of photography is outstanding. Imagine being O’Sullivan coming upon this vista, framing the cave-in with beams at left and right of the image plane and detritus at the bottom. He could have left it at that, but no, he hints at the presence of a man, out of frame, doing what exactly we don’t know. It is this plaisir and jouissance that give this photograph its pleasure and pain.
The knowledge that we know this scene, as the subject knows himself or herself, gives the photograph its pleasure; the fact that we don’t know what is beyond the edge of the frame, who the man is and what he is doing, fractures these structures and challenges the readers position as subject.
As the viewer transgresses the act of pleasurable looking, of enjoying the formal characteristics and textures of the photograph, doubt sets in – what is the man doing, why is he there? As we transgress the pleasure principle the painful principle of what Lacan calls jouissance kicks in. The viewer suffers a crisis of doubt and, conversely, the pattern of the fallen beams of wood and the axe now create a more threatening, claustrophobic atmosphere.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Pyramid and Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada 1867 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Tufa formation, Anaho Island, Pyramid Lake, Nevada 1867 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Geyser Mouth in Ruby Valley, Nevada 1868 Albumen print 7 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches (20 x 26.99cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc..
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Obsidian hill, Mono Lake, California 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Mono Lake, California 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Shoshone Falls, Idaho 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy O’Sullivan (American, 1842-1882) Cañon de Chelle, Walls of the Grand Canon about 1200 feet in height 1873 Albumen print Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase, from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part, by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
The photographs made by Timothy H. O’Sullivan as part of the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, or King Survey, comprise an iconic and richly varied body of work. The first of the great post-Civil War Western expeditions, the King Survey was organised under the authority of the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers. Between 1867 and 1872, Clarence King, the geologist in charge, and his party studied a vast swath of terrain, approximately 100 by 800 miles, encompassing the path of the soon-to-be-completed transcontinental railroad, from the border of California eastward to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The survey’s official photographer, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, was talented, resourceful and imaginative. In four seasons with King’s group – 1867, 1869 and 1872 – he created a diverse body of photographs: geological studies, landscapes, views of miners and mining operations, records of cities and settlements, studies of the survey itself and self-reflexive meditations on his own presence in the West.
Of all the photographers who accompanied the Western surveys of this era, O’Sullivan remains the most admired, studied and debated. This is a result of the distinctly individual quality of his seeing – his particular union of fact and point of view; his understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph. O’Sullivan’s work remains inspiring and instructive: the clues it holds – to the nature of photography, 19th-century visual culture and the construction of photographic history – challenge and enlarge each new generation of viewers.
The King Survey of the Great Basin, from 1867 to 1872, was the model for the other “great surveys” of the 19th-century American West. Rare and iconic works by Timothy H. O’Sullivan, the King Survey’s official photographer, will be featured in an exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from April 7 through Sept. 2. Keith F. Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall, respectively senior and assistant curators of photography at the Nelson-Atkins, organised Timothy O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs.
“There is good reason that O’Sullivan remains so influential after all these years,” said Davis. “Visually speaking, he was the world’s greatest poker player. He always kept his cards close to his vest. His images are at once boldly straightforward and deeply mysterious, a perfect combination of intuition and calculation. His genius lies, in part, in making such originality appear so effortless.”
There are 60 photographs in the exhibition. Nine were borrowed from the American Geographical Society in Milwaukee, WIS; and the remainder are from the holdings of the Nelson-Atkins. Accompanying the exhibition is a major book, co-authored by Davis and Aspinwall, with contributions by three esteemed scholars: John P. Herron, Francois Brunet, and Mark Klett.
“O’Sullivan continues to influence generations of photographers because of his purely individual melding of fact and point of view,” said Aspinwall. “He was a complicated character, a hearty adventurer, a photographic explorer and innovator, with a bit of the daredevil thrown in the mix.” The book emphasises the context of O’Sullivan’s photographs: his best known images in relation to the complete body of his survey work, the function of the photographs within the survey enterprise, and the scientific and cultural importance of the survey itself. In creating the book, Davis and Aspinwall became engaged in their own kind of “survey,” working from opposite ends of the subject back toward a common centre.
“Jane focused on the evidence of the photographs themselves, tracking down every view and putting them into chronological order,” said Davis. “I began with an overview of the history of western exploration and then attempted to describe the King Survey and O’Sullivan’s career in detail. The meeting point, the crux of the whole project, was O’Sullivan’s remarkable photographs.” Davis became fascinated with O’Sullivan’s work 40 years ago, and his respect for the richness and longevity of his work has increased over the years. “Someone once said that writing a biography usually entails a process of ‘falling out of love’ with one’s subject,” said Davis. “That’s absolutely not true in this case. This exhibition and book have resulted in a newer and deeper admiration for a truly one-of-a-kind photographic achievement. That’s O’Sullivan’s gift to us – and we want to share it. Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs gives visitors a new appreciation of the visual history of the 19th-century American West, while presenting some of the museum’s rarest treasures for public view.
Press release and text from the Nelson-Atkins website
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Long Ravine Bridge, CPRR, California 1867 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.39 x 69.85 x 4.14cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Montezuma Silver Works, Oreana, Nevada 1867 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Sioux Hot Springs, near Humboldt Salt Marsh, Nevada 1867 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Steamboat Springs, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Quartzites, Summit, East Humboldt Mountains, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Fissure, Steamboat Springs, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Image: 8 3/4 x 11 7/16 inches (22.23 x 29.05cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Longitude Butte, Ruby Valley, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 Ă— 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Sugar Loaf Mountain, near Virginia City, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Shaft of Savage Mine, Virginia City, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Cave-in, Gould & Curry Mine, Virginia City, Nevada 1868 Albumen print Overall: 7 x 7 1/2 inches (17.78 x 19.05cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Clarence King in Uinta Mountains, Utah 1869 Albumen print Overall: 11 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches (28.26 x 20.64cm) Mat (exhibition): 24 x 20 inches (60.96 x 50.8cm) Framed: 27 1/2 x 23 3/8 x 1 5/8 inches (69.85 x 59.37 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Cottonwood Lake, Wasatch Mountains, Utah 1869 Albumen print Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches (19.69 x 26.67cm) Mat (exhibition): 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 60.96cm) Framed: 23 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 1 5/8 inches (59.37 x 69.85 x 4.13cm) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882) Lake in Conejos Cañon, Colorado 1874 Albumen print Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 4525 Oak Street Kansas City, MO 64111
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Couple Seated on Porch, Gunlock, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
Dorothea Lange
Lange observes the minutiae, the precise details that go to make up the lives of these three towns and puts them together in a wonderful symphony of beautifully calculated, seemingly happenstance associations. Masterful!
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Doorway, Toquerville, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Mulberry Tree, Neagle Home, Toquerville, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Riley Savage, Toquerville, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Hands, Toquerville, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Eggs, Toquerville, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Collection of John and Lolita Dixon
In August 1953, renowned American photographer Dorothea Lange travelled to southern Utah where she met up with her long-time friend Ansel Adams. The two photographers spent three weeks photographing the landscape and people of Toquerville, Gunlock and St. George with the intention of publishing the work in LIFE magazine.
Lange’s enthusiasm for her subject yielded hundreds of photographs from which she composed an extended essay of 135 photographs, including images by Ansel Adams. Thirty-five of those photographs with text by Daniel Dixon appeared under the title Three Mormon Towns in the September 6, 1954 issue of LIFE.
“Dorothea Lange’s Three Mormon Towns,” a new exhibition at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, features 21 of Lange’s photographs from this series acquired by the museum. The exhibition also draws from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, and the collection of John and Lolita Dixon.
The 62 vintage prints in the exhibition, accompanied by excerpts from Dixon’s original text, examine Lange’s lasting interest in the people of southern Utah and their relationship with the land, their heritage and the transformation of the West in post-war America.
“Subtle and poetic, the series of photographs that has come to be known as Three Mormon Towns is a bridge between Lange’s famous Depression Era photographs and her detailed photo essays of the 1950s,” Diana Turnbow, Curator of Photography at Brigham Young University Museum of Art, said.
Utah attracted Lange’s interest when she and her first husband, Maynard Dixon, spent the summer of 1933 camping and working in Zion National Park. She originally intended to photograph southern Utah with the support of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1941; however, a family crisis, followed by the onset of World War II prevented Lange from traveling to Utah. Yet, the desire to photograph the Mormon towns of southern Utah never faded. In 1953, Lange returned to the place that had captured her attention decades earlier.
“While Lange’s photographs depict communities bound together by hard work and religion in the formidable landscape of the Colorado Plateau, they also explore the changes that were beginning to affect not only Utah, but rural communities throughout the United States,” Turnbow said. “Three Mormon Towns was a study of contrasts – of old and new, of quiet villages and a growing city, of deep roots and transient highways. In this series, Lange memorialised the dignity and simplicity of agrarian life in light of post-war urbanisation.”
Published in the September 6, 1954 issue of LIFE magazine, the series of photographs that has come to be known as Three Mormon Towns bridges Dorothea Lange’s famous Depression era photographs with her detailed photo essays of the 1950s. Featuring sixty-two vintage photographs from the series, this exhibition considers Dorothea Lange’s lasting interest in the people of southern Utah and their relationship with the land, their heritage, and the transformation of the West in post-war America.
Known for her candid and sympathetic depiction of people, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) is one of the most revered photographers of the twentieth century. For over four decades she explored the human psyche through portraiture and documentary photography. The probing portraits of her early career prepared Lange to photograph the people involved in the tumultuous events of the San Francisco labor strikes of 1934, the Great Depression, and the Japanese internment during World War II. Her 1935 photograph, TheMigrant Mother, is one of the great icons of the American century.
In the 1950s, Lange began to create photographic essays for the popular picture and news magazine LIFE. She eventually completed five major essays for publication, with two of the essays, including Three Mormon Towns, printed in LIFE. In addition, Lange was a founding member of Aperture magazine and played a role in organising the influential Family of Man exhibition that premiered in New York in 1955.
In the later part of her life, Lange photographed and traveled extensively with her husband, Paul Taylor, in conjunction with his work in international development. Her photographs of South America, Africa, and Asia were deft and subtle, exploring a rich visual landscape populated with diverse objects and people.
In 1964, Lange was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sustained by determination, she worked steadily to complete a number of projects including a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She passed away on October 11, 1965, content with the life that she had been able to live.
Text from the Brigham Young University Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 24/03/2011 no longer available online
Gunlock, Utah
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Sky and Clouds, Gunlock, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Jake Jones’ Hands, Gunlock, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Horseplay, Gunlock, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Four Young Riders in Summer 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago
St. George, Utah
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Anne Carter Johnson, St. George, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Young Woman, St. George, Utah 1953 Silver gelatin photograph Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley
Brigham Young University Museum of Art North Campus Drive, Provo, UT 84602-1400
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