watkins taber savage (1 résultats)

Hardcover. Etat : Fine. Large oblong folio. 39 albumen prints, on thick card mounts, recto and verso, comprising: 29 mammoth (approx. 20 x 16 in.), 4 large format (approx. 8 x 10 in.) and 6 medium format (approx. 5 x 8 in.) prints. Six of the mammoth photographs bear the Taber imprint and the Watkins negative number. Contemporary half red morocco gilt, gilt edges. Minimal wear, some fading to the handsome binding. Foxing to mounts. Minor fading. A splendid volume with the prints generally in excellent condition. This magnificent American West photograph album contains an astounding 21 mammoth photographs by leading photographers including Carleton Watkins, Charles R. Savage, and Isaiah West Taber, as well as other important photographs. The album features a major new discovery, Carleton Watkins's Sentinel Rock, Down the Valley, from U. Point, Yosemite, which is not in Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: Complete Mammoth Photographs. Weston Naef has examined this print and confirms that it is the only located example of the long-sought negative 684, known only from inventories until now. "As specimens of the photographic art they are unequaled. The views are indescribably unique and beautiful. Nothing in the way of landscapes can be more impressive." New York Times on Watkins's Yosemite photographs, 1862. Carleton Watkins and Yosemite Carleton Watkins was the greatest of the first generation of photographers of the American West. His early photographs of Yosemite and Utah have never been surpassed. The scale of Watkins's monumental subjects was matched by his ambition and drive, which dwarfed that of his competitors. The photographer commissioned a San Francisco cabinetmaker to create a camera capable of accommodating glass plates as large as 18 x 22 inches. In a series of grueling expeditions over several decades, he took into the wilderness a wagon and a train of mules carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment and heavy glass plates. The amazingly detailed photographs made with the unique mammoth-plate camera brought Watkins international renown. The first four Yosemite photographs in this album date to Watkins's first expedition (1865-1866). Watkins chose thirty of these for exhibition at the 1867 Paris Exposition, where he won the first-prize medal for landscape photographs. Four of those photographs are present here. For more than 150 years Watkins has retained his place as one of America's greatest photographic artists. Watkins's views are "the finest landscape photographs produced by an American in the nineteenth century, and some of the most sophisticated and arresting images ever produced with a camera" (Nickel). The album includes the following mammoth Watkins prints: Section of the Grizzly Giant with Galen Clark, Mariposa Grove (1865-1866); Yosemite Falls, from Glacier Point (1865-1866); Cathedral Spires, Yosemite (1865-1866); Grizzly Giant with a Group of Hunters at the Foot of the Tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite (1865-1866); The City from the Residence of Bishop Kip, Rincon Hill, San Francisco (1864-1865); Sugar Loaf Island and Seal Rocks, Farallon Islands (1868-1869); and Sentinel Rock, Down the Valley, from U. Point, Yosemite, Cal. (c. 1870). The last of these is not in Naef and Hult-Lewis. Weston Naef reports that this is undoubtedly Watkins's Sentinel Rock, the long-sought negative 684. According to Naef, this may be the only extant print of this photograph. Yosemite and San Francisco by Isaiah W. Taber Isaiah Taber was a dominant figure in Western photography after the Civil War. He came to San Francisco in 1864 and founded a gallery in 1871. In the winter of 1875-76, Carleton Watkins went bankrupt, and Taber acquired his gallery and his enormous collection of negatives. "Once he had acquired Watkins's gallery and negatives, Taber began his bid for the exalted position of premier photographer of the west coast" (Palmquist, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West). Many of Watkins's prints were released with Taber's imprin.