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VOL. 44, NO. 14 FRIDAY APRL 5, 2013
Landmark Exhibition Explores Photography During Civil War Exhibition to Run in New York City from April 2 to Sept. 3 ore than 200 of the finest and most poignant photographs of the American Civil War have been brought together for the landmark exhibition Photography and the American Civil War, which opened April 2 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Through examples drawn from the Metropolitan’s celebrated holdings of this material, complemented by excep-
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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. The exhibition, made possible by The Horace W .
Unknown Maker: Abraham Lincoln, Presidential Campaign Medal, 1860.
tional 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.
Goldsmith Foundation, coincides with the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), the turning point in the war. Thomas Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, commented, “During the Civil War years, the medium of photography matured and flourished in surprising and unexpected ways, and what survives from the period is a rich visual legacy of stunning complexity. The tragic beauty and profundity of the photographs have been a touchstone for generations of artists from Walker Evans in the 1930s to today.” At the start of the Civil War, the nation’s photography galleries and image purveyors were overflowing with a variety of photographs of all kinds and sizes, many examUnknown Artist, Union Private, 11th New ples of which will be featured York Infantry (Also Known as the 1st Fire in the exhibition: portraits Zouaves), May-June 1861. made on thin sheets of copper
Richmond; diagnostic medical seal and stamp their convictions studies of wounded soldiers who with their blood,—men who have survived the war’s last bloody bat- flung themselves into the great tles; and portraits of Abraham gulf of the unknown to teach the Lincoln, as well as of his assassin world that there are truths dearer John Wilkes Booth. The exhibition features groundbreaking works by Mathew B. Brady, George N. Barnard, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy O’Sullivan, among many others. It also examines in-depth the important, if generally misunderstood, role played by Brady, perhaps the most famous of all wartime photographers, in conceiving Unknown Artist, Captain Charles A. and Sergeant the first extended John M. Hawkins, Company E, 38th Regiment photographic cover- Georgia Volunteer Infantry, 1861-62. age of any war. The exhibition addresses the widely than life, wrongs and shames held, but inaccurate, belief that more to be dreaded than death.” Approximately 1,000 photograBrady produced most of the surviving Civil War images, although he phers worked separately and in actually made very few field pho- teams to produce hundreds of thoutographs during the conflict. sands of photographs—portraits Instead, he commissioned and pub- and views—that were actively collished, over his own name and lected during the period (and over imprint, negatives made by an the past century and a half) by ever-expanding team of field oper- Americans of all ages and social ators, including Gardner, classes. In a direct expression of the nation’s changing vision of itself, O’Sullivan, and Barnard. The exhibition will feature the camera documented the war and Gardner’s haunting views of the also mediated it by memorializing dead at Antietam in September the events of the battlefield as well 1862, which are believed to be the as the consequent toll on the home first photographs of the Civil War front. Among the many highlights of seen in a public exhibition. A the exhibition will be a superb selecreporter for the New York Times tion of early wartime portraits of wrote on October 20, 1862, about soldiers and officers who sat for the images shown at Brady’s New their likenesses before leaving their York City gallery: “Mr. Brady has homes for the war front. In these done something to bring home to one-of-a-kind images, a picture of us the terrible reality and earnest- American society emerges. The ness of war. If he has not brought rarest are ambrotypes and tintypes bodies and laid them in our door- of Confederates, drawn from the Unknown Maker, Sojourner Truth, yards and along the streets, he has renowned collection of David Wynn “I Sell the Shadow to Support the done something very like it… Here Vaughan, who has assembled the lie men who have not hesitated to Substance,” 1864. (Continued on page 4)
(daguerreotypes), glass (ambrotypes), or iron (tintypes), each housed in a small decorative case; and larger, “painting-sized” likenesses on paper, often embellished with India ink, watercolor, and oils. On sale in bookshops and stationers were thousands of photographic portraits on paper of America’s leading statesmen, artists, and actors, as well as stereographs of notable scenery from New York’s Broadway to Niagara Falls and the canals of Venice. Viewed in a stereopticon, the paired images provided the public with seeming three-dimensionality and the charming pleasure of traveling the world in one’s armchair. The Photography and the Civil War exhibition will include intimate studio portraits of armed Union and Confederate soldiers preparing to meet their destiny; battlefield landscapes strewn with human remains; rare multi-panel panoramas of the killing fields of Gettysburg and destruction of
Julia’s Winter Antiques, Asian, & Fine Art Auction Is One For The Record Books
Gale’s collection included approximately 35 works by William Lester Stevens such as this old Vermont mill. The depiction of the ramshackle building resting beside a waterfall lined with snow sold for $31,050, exceeding its pre-auction estimate.
Rarely does one get to witness the events that unfolded at Julia’s recent antiques, Asian & fine art auction that took place on January 31 and February 1. A definite buzz was felt the weeks leading up to the auction and through the crowd on the day of the sale when a certain Korean folding screen hit the block. The energy was almost palpable with attendees craning their necks for a better view and the rising din as they leaned into their neighbors
with anticipatory chatter. One of over 800 lots of Asian antiques that comprised the third day of this huge three-day event that also included over 400 paintings, and over 600 pieces of antique furniture and objects d’art, the piece was an amazing 10-panel folding longevity screen that was full of Asian symbolism for life and endurance and was considered by many to be one of the finest examples known. The bids came fast and furious and one couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement. Jim Julia’s cadence grew to a fever pitch as the bids continued from a mere $10,000 starting bid to climb past $300,000, then $400,000, then $500,000. When it finally landed at a staggering $603,750, the winning bidder in attendance and the capacity crowd
One of over 800 lots of Asian antiques that comprised the third day of this huge three-day event, this amazing 10-panel folding longevity screen was considered by many to be one of the finest examples known. Chock full of Asian symbolism for life and endurance including cranes and tortoises among gardens, mountains, rivers, and waterfalls, it surpassed all expectations, finally landing at a staggering $603,750.
who witnessed it erupted in a Korean collector. cacophony of applause. The winThe historic auction had severner was a Korean art consultant al such moments throughout its who flew in from South Korea to three days that contributed to a examine and bid for a major (Continued on page 16)