Photography and the Civil War at the Met

An ambrotype image of the Pattillo brothers, from Georgia

Credit: Jack Melton, David Wynn Vaughan Collection

More than two hundred of the finest and most poignant photographs of the American Civil War have been brought together for this landmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Through examples drawn from the Metropolitan's celebrated holdings of this material, complemented by important loans from public and private collections, the exhibition will examine the evolving role of the camera during the nation's bloodiest war. The "War between the States" was the great test of the young Republic's commitment to its founding precepts; it was also a watershed in photographic history. The camera recorded from beginning to end the heartbreaking narrative of the epic four-year war (1861–1865) in which 750,000 lives were lost. This traveling exhibition will explore, through photography, the full pathos of the brutal conflict that, after 150 years, still looms large in the American public's imagination.

Farm Security Administration Photos at the New York Public Library

Lee Russell

Here is a fascinating story about the Farm Security Administration, Roy Stryker, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. I came across this story on the New York Times site called Lens. 


During the 30s and 40s Roy Stryker, who founded the FSA during the Great Depression, wanted photographers to document the farm communities and the rural poor for future generations. He sent photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Russell Lee to travel the United States and create this visual history. Photographers sent their photos back to Stryker and he forwarded them to Romana Javitz who was then head of the New York Public Library's Picture Collection. The collection he forwarded to her had about 41,000 prints in its archive.


Stryker was nervous about sending them to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he was afraid these photographs would get lost among everything else being handled there so that is how they ended up getting sent to Javitz in NYC. Then in the mid 1940s, the Library of Congress established the Farm Security/Administration Office of War Information Photograph Collections. This collection's archive had about 175,000 negatives and 1,600 color transparencies. The Washington archive became the authoritative source for the images.


Yes, the images in New York were forgotten about and anyway it was assumed that all the image sin NY were in Washington. The incredible part is, the prints in the New York Public Library were being lent out to the public. Anyone with a NY Public library card could check out a Dorothea Lange photo put a piece of tape on it and stick it to their wall. So some were damaged, and yes, some were never returned.


It was only in 2005 that Stryker's donated prints were cataloged and it was then discovered that some of the photos in the NY collection were not among the negatives at the Library of Congress. The New York Public Library digitized more than 1,000 images that aren't in the LC online catalog and they created a special NYPL site for these photos. In addition they created another site containing the records, no images for all 41,000 FSA photos in their collection.


You can read and see more at the Lens site.


Below is a small selection of books from the photography collection in the Arts Division, there are many more on this subject and these photographers.

Killed: Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration

The Likes of Us: Photography and the Farm Security Administration

FSA: The American Vision 

Dust Bowl Descent 

Migrant Mother: How a Photograph Defined the Great Depression

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits

The Photographs of Russell Lee

Russell Lee Photographs: Images from the Russell Lee Photograph Collection at the Center for American History 

Walker Evans: Decade by Decade

Walker Evans: Photographer of America

Art Gallery of Ontario:Berenice Abbott: Photographs

May 23 – August 19, 2012

Berenice Abbott (1898-1991). Blossom Restaurant, 103 Bowery, Manhattan, October 03, 1935. 

"The Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto) and the Jeu de Paume (Paris) have co-organized the exhibition Berenice Abbott: Photographs, the first retrospective of the American photographer, Berenice Abbott, presented in France and Canada. Curated by Dr. Gaëlle Morel, Ryerson Image Centre, Berenice Abbott: Photographs will be on view in Paris from February 20 to April 29, 2012, and the exhibition is being presented in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) from May 23 to August 19, 2012, in partnership with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and the AGO.

Famous for her tireless fight for the recognition of French photographer Eugène Atget, Berenice Abbott is also prominently known for her documentary project Changing New York (1935-39). The exhibition Berenice Abbott: Photographs explores the different stages of Abbott's expansive career through more than 120 photographs. In order to provide a larger context for her œuvre, the exhibition will present her photographic prints alongside a series of never before exhibited personal documents - including letters, book mock-ups, drawings, magazines, and scrapbooks - and a collection of first edition books."

More at the AGO site.

American Power and the Photographs of Mitch Epstein

Coal Power Plant Cheshsire by Mitch Epstein

Mitch Epstein is an American photographer whose photographs are in numerous museum collections, including New York's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, and The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. has also worked as a director, cinematographer, and production designer on several films, including Dad, Salaam Bombay!, and Mississippi Masala.


Epstein has done many photographic essays of sites within the United States and to India where he took photographs for his book, In Pursuit of India. From 1992 to 1995, Epstein photographed in Vietnam,  that resulted in his book titled, Vietnam: A Book of Changes.


He wanted to investigate energy production and consumption in the United States so from From 2004 to 2009 he traveled throughout the States and photographed many energy production sites. He found while compiling this photographic essay that power companies do not like to be photographed and was often stopped to be questions by their security staff. Epstein was also interrogated by the FBI while standing on a public street pointing his camera at a power facility. A series of large-scale prints resulted from these photos, have been exhibited worldwide and have resulted in a monograph called, American Power, published by Steidl. 

“American Power”  indicates how our thoughts on industry and pollution have evolved. In the early 1930s, the Ford Motor Company commissioned a series of work from Charles Sheeler. One of Sheeler’s best paintings from that period is Classic Landscape  (see above), now at the National Gallery of Art. Sheeler presents industry as progress: The dominant, left-to-right, past-toward-future line that leads us into the painting is a railroad track that zips by American’s agricultural past, as represented by grain silos, on its way toward America’s future: industry." (from Modern Art Notes).

In the compiling of this book questions of power, both electrical and political are raised. "His focus is on energy – how it gets made, how it gets used, and the ramifications of both. From 2003 to 2008, he photographed at and around sites where fossil fuel, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar power are produced in the United States. The resulting photographs contain Epstein’s signature complex wit, surprising detail, and formal rigor. These pictures illuminate the intersection between American society and American landscape. Here is a portrait of early 21st century America, as it clings to past comforts and gropes for a more sensible future. In an accompanying essay, Epstein discusses his method, and how making these photographs led him to think harder about the artist’s role in a country teetering between collapse and transformation." (from Steidl).


Watch the podcast and read more about Mitch Epstein at Modern Art Notes

978-3865219244