American Photographs

In the nineteenth century, people from all walks of life embraced the new medium of photography with unparalleled enthusiasm. Here was a medium, it was proposed, that could serve as a mirror of nature, suggesting new possibilities to artists. For the average citizen, less concerned with art or science, the medium offered a satisfying way to record his or her private world - family, friends, homes, and farms. All of these aspirations and commonplace interests converge in the picture of nineteenth-century America vividly brought to life in the National Museum of American Art's Charles Isaacs Collection. American Photographs: The First Century presents a wide-ranging selection of photographs from this collection, including Civil War images by Alexander Gardner and the Mathew Brady Studio and spectacular western landscapes by Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson. Seventy-nine colorplates are supplemented by over a hundred four-color images. More than two-thirds of these works are being reproduced for the first time. A deliberate effort has been made to mix familiar and lesser-known photographers, styles of work, and a variety of processes in order to explore ideas about the influence of photographic culture in America during the years from 1839 to 1939.