Jane L. Aspinwall

Clarence King's Survey, undertaken between 1867 and 1872, covered a vast swath of terrain, from the border of California eastward to the edge of the Great Plains. It was the first survey to include a full-time photographer—Timothy O'Sullivan—who produced about 450 finished photographs in large-format and smaller-format stereographs. O'Sullivan's images convey a distinct individual quality of perception, at once direct and laconic, as well as a perfect union of objective fact and personal interpretation. As such, O'Sullivan remains the most admired, studied, and debated photographer who worked on the great western surveys of the 19th century. This handsome and enlightening book aims to enrich and enlarge our understanding of O'Sullivan's pivotal body of western photographs by emphasizing the idea of context. This ambition encompasses several frames of reference: O'Sullivan's best-known images in relation to his larger body of survey work; the function his photographs served in relation to the survey's overall goals and methodologies; and the King Survey itself as a logical part of a complex and prolonged expeditionary endeavor. The volume also includes an essential catalogue raisonné of O'Sullivan's King Survey work. Distributed for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Art Institute of Chicago(10/22/11-01/15/12) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art(04/14/12-08/26/12)

A fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the California gold rush through the lens of the daguerreotype camera The California gold rush was the first major event in American history to be documented in depth by photography. This fascinating volume offers a fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the people, places, and culture of that historical episode as seen through daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of the era. After gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, thousands made the journey to California, including daguerreotypists who established studios in cities and towns and ventured into the gold fields in specially outfitted photographic wagons. Their images, including portraits, views of cities and gold towns, and miners at work in the field, provide an extraordinary glimpse into the evolution of mining culture and technology, the variety of nationalities and races involved in the mining industry, and the growth of cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento. Including numerous images published here for the first time, this book provides an extraordinary glimpse into the transformation of the American West.Distributed for The Hall Family Foundation in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of ArtExhibition Schedule:The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (September 6, 2019–January 26, 2020)Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (April 4, 2020–July 12, 2020)Yale University Art Gallery (August 28–November 29, 2020)

A glimpse into the development of the American West through startling photographs of the frontier landscape and the rich culture of American Indian tribes Best known for his Civil War photographs, Alexander Gardner (1821–1882) also created two extraordinary bodies of work depicting the transformation of the American West: Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railway and Scenes in the Indian County. In 1867, after joining the survey team for what became the Kansas Pacific Railroad, Gardner photographed the path of the proposed extension, emphasizing the ease of future railroad construction and economic development, while including studies of American Indians and settlements along the way. The following year, Gardner recorded peace talks with Indian tribes at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Distinctly sympathetic to the plight of the American Indian, Gardner made candid documentation of individual chiefs, their encampments and daily life, burial trees, and the peace proceedings themselves. With a full catalogue raisonné of these two rare series, Alexander Gardner offers a complete visual index of these remarkable photographs, made at a critical moment in the history of the American West. Distributed for the Hall Family Foundation and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of ArtExhibition Schedule:The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (07/25/14–01/11/15)