Hamilton College's Emerson Gallery presents "Hamilton Collects Photography/The First One Hundred Years," a comprehensive historical survey of photography from the emergence of the daguerreotype in the 1840s to the height of the modern period during the first half of the 20th century. Open through Sunday, Nov. 23, the exhibition includes works by many well known photographers among them Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Alfred Steiglitz, Eadweard Muybridge, Thomas Eakins, Berenice Abbott and Ansel Adams. Drawn from the collections of Hamilton alumni, parents, and friends, "Hamilton Collects Photography" includes approximately 130 photographs.
The show highlights a spectrum of styles, processes and movements including collodion (wet plate camera), cartes-de-visites, and stereoscopic views. Among the unique images included are the earliest paper photograph of Jerusalem, Muybridge pioneering motion studies, and Eakin's portrait of Walt Whitman. The show will be divided into 12 sections:
• Section I focuses on the early history of photography at the college and the pioneering contributions of Professor Charles Avery. Highlights are Avery's daguerreotype portrait taken on his European research trip to study the chemistry of the new technology. Early images by John Schorb, who billed himself as America's first traveling photographer, are also included.
• Section II, The Daguerreotype. With a selection of landscapes and portraits from the 1840s and 1850s, this section documents America's early infatuation with the new medium of photography.
• Section III, Photography and the Civil War, includes historic images by George Barnard as well as Mathew Brady's original studio wet plate camera. Several memorable photographs, including "The Negro Militia on Parade on York's Main Street," by John Schorb depict scenes from the Reconstruction period in the South.
• Section IV, Early Paper Photography/Faraway Places, documents the emergence of travel photography in the 1860s and 70s. Highlights are images of the Holy Land, including the earliest paper photograph of Jerusalem and a striking selection of early Italian photographs.
• Section V, The American West, includes classic images by Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson from the third quarter of the 19th century.
• Section VI. Pictures of Science, focuses on the work of Thomas Eakins and Eadweard Muybridge. A number of Muybridge's pioneering motion studies are included as well as Eakins' portrait of Walt Whitman and his photographic studies for paintings.
• Section VII, The Pictorialists, records the emergence of photography as an art medium at the end of the nineteenth century. Edward Steichen's classic, Flat Iron Building, and other notable works by Edward Steiglitz anchor this group. The influential British photographer Peter Henry Emerson is represented as will such others associated with pictorialism including Karl Struss and William Post.
• Section VIII, The City, explores new directions in documentary photography in the early twentieth century. The theme of modern urban life provides the context for viewing works by Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott, Lewis Hind, Georges Brassai and Edward Eagle.
• Section IX, Modern Masters, highlights works by Ansel Adams, including one of the most famous of all photographic images, Moonrise, in a rare large-scale format. Others in this group include Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Edward Weston.
• Section X, Portraits, includes Edward Steichen's iconic images of Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson. Among the others in this section are Man Ray's photograph of the painter Georges Braque, Berenice Abbott's portrait of the French writer Francois Mauriac and Arnold Newman's portrait of the painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
• Section XI, Experimental Photography, focuses on early modernist directions in photography in the 1920s and 30s. The formal innovations of photographers Bill Brandt, Heinz Lowe, Man Ray, Arthur Siegel, and Ferenc Berkoare included.
• Section XII, Pictures of Science and Nature, includes much-reproduced works by Harold Edgerton, Wilson Bentley, Edward Steichen and Berenice Abbott. A number of rare images by Hamilton photographer Sylvia Saunders are also included.
The "Hamilton Collects" series focuses on current collecting trends in the Hamilton College community to illuminate the art of collecting and affirm the value of a liberal arts education in making judgments of quality. The first milestone exhibition (spring 2002), "Hamilton Collects American Art," told the story of American Art from colonial times to the mid-20th century. The next planned "Hamilton Collects" exhibition will focus on modern, post-1950 American art.
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10 am to 5 PM and on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 PM. For information, call (315) 859-4396.
