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From the Photography collection.
03.31.09
Augustus Washington John Brown
This portrait is possibly the earliest of only six known daguerreotypes of the abolitionist John Brown, made while he was living in Massachusetts. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.30.09
John Carbutt William T. Sherman and Son
This photograph was taken two years after the devastating death of Sherman’s favorite son, Willy, who died after exposure to yellow fever while visiting his father’s camp. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.28.09
Kenneth Josephson Stockholm
In this witty image, Kenneth Josephson creates a meditation on the magic of the light-formed image, reversing our expectations by recording a white snow |
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From the Photography collection.
12.28.08
Timothy O'Sullivan Desert Sand Hills
This iconic view of Timothy O’Sullivan’s photographic van, made while the photographer worked for the U.S. Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, suggests the spare, inhospitable nature of much of this terrain. |
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From the Photography collection.
10.27.09
Gregory Crewdson Untitled (snowy valley)
Working in the manner of a film director, Gregory Crewdson leads a production crew to create elaborately staged tableaux, which he photographs multiple times, and later digitally combines, to produce the final image. |
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From the Photography collection.
02.27.09
Clarence White The Orchard
Clarence White, a leading figure in the turn-of-the-20th-century Pictorialist movement, derived his poetic, artistic vision in part from an appreciation of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art and Japanese prints. |
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From the Photography collection.
11.26.09
Alexander Gardner Three Chiefs, Laramie, Wyoming
Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to record peace commission meetings with various regional tribes, including the Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne and Crow peoples. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.25.09
Walker Evans License-Photo Studio, New York
In this image, Walker Evans investigates the simplicity and ubiquity of photography in American society. |
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From the Photography collection.
08.25.09
Unknown Maker The Daguerreotypist
Only a fraction of American daguerreotypes—between 5 and 10 percent—bear the maker’s name. |
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From the Photography collection.
03.23.09
Southworth and Hawes Harriett Beecher Stowe
Boston daguerreotypists Southworth & Hawes took this portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the noted writer and abolitionist, just before she wrote her most famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. |
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From the Photography collection.
01.22.09
William Fraser A Wet Night
This photograph, created in the late 1800s, was one of the most highly praised of its day, hailed as both a technical and artistic tour-de-force. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.21.09
Edward Weston Pepper No. 30, 1930
To create this work—one of his most famous—Weston contact printed an 8 x 10 negative to ensure microscopic precision, transforming a common pepper into something monumental and timeless. |
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From the Photography collection.
08.21.09
Andy Warhol Lana Turner
Warhol’s multiply-reproduced portrait of Lana Turner suggests the dilution of individual personality, as well as the power of media to endlessly replicate images. |
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From the Photography collection.
11.19.09
Timothy O'Sullivan Home of a Rebel Sharp-Shooter at Battle of Gettysburg
It was discovered in the 1970s that this scene was arranged by the photographers: they dragged the body some 70 yards and propped the rifle against the stone wall resulting in a curious kind of document-one that is factually false but emotionally true. |
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From the Photography collection.
02.19.09
Charles Sheeler Criss-Crossed Conveyors
Charles Sheeler spent six weeks exploring the vast site of the Ford Motor Company plant outside Detroit before making this image. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.16.09
Andre Kertesz Fork
This vintage photograph is one of the most important of Kertész’s Parisian period (1925-1936). It is at once realistic and abstract, intimate and monumental. |
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From the Photography collection.
03.14.09
ParkeHarrison Mourning Cloak
Using found and handmade objects, the ParkeHarrisons create elaborate scenes, immersing the viewer in a fantastical realm. |
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From the Photography collection.
01.13.09
Charles Fredericks Temple of Art
In this view of Charles Fredericks’ New York City gallery, hundreds of lamps form the words "Photographic Temple of Art," covering a semi-circular arch 60 feet across. Such a display confirmed the prominence and ambition of his business. |
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From the Photography collection.
10.12.09
Unknown Maker Gold Miners with Sluice
A variant of this daguerreotype was published in Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion of March 25, 1854, to illustrate technical advances in mining operations. |
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From the Photography collection.
09.11.09
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Rothenburg ob der Tauber
This bird’s-eye view of Rothenburg, a small medieval town in southern Germany, exemplifies the radical nature of László Moholy-Nagy’s “New Vision,” as he transforms a quiet street scene into a bold, modern arrangement of shapes, textures and light. |
