Photography at MoMA Contributors Quentin Bajac is The Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz The Museum of Modern Art draws upon the exceptional depth of its collection to Chief Curator of Photography at The Museum tell a new history of photography in the three-volume series Photography at MoMA. of Modern Art, New York. Since the invention of photography, legions of practitioners have mined its Georey Batchen is Professor of Art History, artistic and practical potential, paying particular attention to its novel depiction Classics, and Religious Studies at the Victoria of space and time, its utility as a tool for documentation and exploration, and its University of Wellington, New Zealand. distinctive take on modernism and modernity. This volume explores the ways in which this new medium—photography—and this new apparatus—the camera— Michel Frizot is a former professor at the École du Louvre, Paris, and editor of A New History evolved during its irst century, from the masterworks of William Henry Fox Talbot, of Photography (1998). one of photography’s inventors, to the portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, and Gertrude Käsebier; the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge; Lucy Gallun is Assistant Curator in the Department surveys of landscape and architecture by American and European practitioners; of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, the documentary images of Carleton Watkins, Eugène Atget, and Lewis Hine; New York. and the modernist works of Karl Blossfeldt, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand. Sarah Hermanson Meister is Curator in the This volume provides a wide-ranging look at a medium so thoroughly and instantly only. Department of Photography at The Museum modern that it is represented in MoMA’s collection by works that predate any of Modern Art, New York. of the Museum’s paintings or sculptures by a full forty years. And now, more than 175 years later, the modern spirit of early photography remains intact, Roxana Marcoci is Senior Curator in the Department and Photography at MoMA: 1840 to 1920 provides a record of its contradictions, of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, aspirations, and achievements. New York. purposesdistribution. Shelley Rice is Arts Professor at New York University, with a joint appointment between the Photography wide and Imaging Department and the Department review of Art History. or for Bonnie Yochelson is an independent curator and art historian based in New York. releasedpublication for PDF Not Cover: Charles Thurston Thompson British, 1816¨1868 English Mirror, c. 1730, from Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Forest. 1853 Albumen silver print 9⅛ ª 6⅛ in (23.1 ª 15.6 cm) Acquired through the generosity of Jon L. Stryker, 2014 376 pp.; 402 color reproductions Published by The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019¢5497 ISBN: 978¢1¢63345¢028¢8 www.moma.org Printed in Spain only. purposesdistribution. reviewwide or for releasedpublication for PDF Not Photography at MoMA Edited by Quentin Bajac Lucy Gallun Roxana Marcoci Sarah Hermanson Meister 1840 1920 Contents Foreword The Pencil of Nature: Great Britain Glenn D. Lowry 1840 1870 9 Entirely Modern: Early British Photography Geoffrey Batchen “Background Material”: Nineteenth-Century 18 Photography at MoMA Quentin Bajac 10 Early Photography in France 1850 1870 “The Black Clothing of Things”: French Photography under the Second Empire Quentin Bajac 56 Armchair Travelers: only. Around the World 1840 1870 Far Away, So Close: Photography in the Age of Colonial Expansion Roxana Marcoci 98 purposesdistribution. The New Frontier: Exploring America 1860 1910 wide Impressions of America review Lucy Gallun or 142 for American Vernacular 1840 1920 Not Necessarily Art: Nineteenth-Century American Photographs Sarah Hermanson Meister released 186 publication for European Applied Photography PDF 1860 1920 Photographic Rigor and Truth: The Document Not Michel Frizot 234 Pursuing the Ideal: the Artist and the Amateur 1880 1920 Expectations of Meaning (or, The House that Alfred Built) Shelley Rice 280 Pictorialism into Modernism 1900 1920 Becoming Modern Bonnie Yochelson 322 Index of Plates 368 Acknowledgments 372 Contributors 374 Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art 376 The Pencil of Nature: Early Photography Armchair Travelers: The New Frontier: American European Applied Pursuing the Ideal: Pictorialism Great Britain in France Around the World Exploring America Vernacular Photography the Artist and the into Amateur Modernism 1840 1870 1850 1870 1840 1870 1860 1910 1840 1920 1860 1920 1880 1920 1900 1920 only. Robert Adamson Olympe Aguado de las Marismas James Anderson George N. Barnard Charles Dudley Arnold Thomas Annan Zaida Ben-Yúsuf Paul L. Anderson Anna Atkins François Aubert Felice Beato Charles M. Bell Jessie Tarbox Beals Ottomar Anschütz Alvin Langdon Coburn Karl Blossfeldt Julia Margaret Cameron Charles Aubry Paul-Marcellin Berthier William H. Bell Arthur P. Bedou Eugène Atget Edward Curtis Anton Giulio Bragaglia Lewis Carroll Édouard-Denis Baldus Bisson Frères Henry Hamilton Bennett Ernest J. Bellocq Alphonse Bertillon Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas Arturo Bragaglia Charles Cliord Auguste Belloc Samuel Bourne James Wallace Black Henry Hamilton Bennett Hippolyte Blancard Robert Demachy Anne W. Brigman purposesdistribution. Alfred Capel Cure Bisson Frères George P. Critcherson Brady & Company Wilson A. Bentley Committee on Public Information Eugène Druet Gertrude LeRoy Brown Francis Edmond Currey Bruno Braquehais Louis De Clercq Solomon D. Butcher Brown Brothers Georges Demenÿ Peter Henry Emerson Clarence Sinclair Bull Hugh Welch Diamond Adolphe Braun Maxime Du Camp William England Charles H. Currier Louis-Émile Durandelle Frederick H. Evans Alvin Langdon Coburn wide Roger Fenton Étienne Carjat John L. Dunmore Alexander Gardner Lewis W. Hine Gebrüder Haeckel Arnold Genthe Arthur Wesley Dow review Clementina, Lady Hawarden Eugène Cuvelier Roger Fenton Alfred A. Hart Clifton Johnson Heinrich Harmsen Frank Hurley Marcel Duchamp or David Octavius Hill André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri Francis Frith Frank Jay Haynes Frances Benjamin Johnston Edward Hoole Gertrude Käsebier Hugo Erfurth for Fallon Horne Guillaume-Benjamin-Armand Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey William Henry Jackson Edwin Hale Lincoln Enrico Imoda Heinrich Kühn Laura Gilpin Robert Howlett Duchenne de Boulogne John B. Greene Darius Kinsey William H. Martin Eduard Jacobi Jacques-Henri Lartigue Bernard Shea Horne Calvert Richard Jones Herman Heid Gustave Le Gray Eadweard J. Muybridge Eadweard J. Muybridge Jules Janssen Léonard Misonne Walter R. Latimer, Sr. James Mudd Alphonse Le Blondel Robert Macpherson Timothy H. O'Sullivan Pach Brothers Charles Harry Jones George H. Seeley August Sander William Henry Fox Talbot Gustave Le Gray Auguste Mestral William H. Rau Jacob August Riis Georg Koppmann Edward Steichen George H. Seeley releasedpublication Charles Thurston Thompson Henri Le Secq John Murray John Reekie John Runk London Daily Mirror Alfred Stieglitz Charles Sheeler Benjamin Brecknell Turner Charles Marville Charles Nègre Andrew Joseph Russell Charles Schenk Étienne-Jules Marey Félix Thiollier Edward Steichen for Unknown photographer Nadar William Henry Pigou Underwood and Underwood William J. Shew Paul Martin Adam Clark Vroman Alfred Stieglitz PDF Charles Nègre Carlo Ponti Unknown photographers Charles Norman Sladen Charles Marville Eva Watson-Schütze Paul Strand Not Henri-Victor Regnault James Robertson Carleton E. Watkins H. William Tupper Emil Mayer Clarence H. White Karl Struss Louis-Rémy Robert Auguste Salzmann Underwood and Underwood James Nasmyth Margaret Watkins Louis Rousseau John Shaw Smith Unknown photographers Herbert G. Ponting Orrin Wightman Adolphe Terris Giorgio Sommer Carleton E. Watkins Prefecture of Police, Paris Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Adrien Tournachon William James Stillman John Adams Whipple Press Illustrating Company Unknown photographers Félix Teynard Joseph Janvier Woodward Henry Ruschin Auguste Vacquerie Linnaeus Tripe Willard Worden Otto Schmidt Julien Vallou de Villeneuve Underwood and Underwood Yerkes Observatory Paul Thompson Unknown photographers John Thomson Underwood and Underwood Unknown photographers Léon Vidal Hugo van Werden The Pencil of Nature: Great Britain only. purposesdistribution. reviewwide or 1840 1870 for releasedpublication for PDF Robert Adamson Not Anna Atkins Julia Margaret Cameron Lewis Carroll Charles Cliord Alfred Capel Cure Francis Edmond Currey Hugh Welch Diamond Roger Fenton Clementina, Lady Hawarden David Octavius Hill Fallon Horne Robert Howlett Calvert Richard Jones James Mudd William Henry Fox Talbot Charles Thurston Thompson Benjamin Brecknell Turner Unknown photographer Entirely Modern: (taken prior to June 1844, plate 5), for example, promotional trip he made to France in June 1843. Allowing at the time, Hill and Adamson’s work presented Early British Photography demonstrated photography’s ability to capture his camera to crop the building abruptly on three sides, he photography as a medium capable of expressing transparent objects, along with the light they reflected shows how photography can divide the world it pictures creativity and individuality, even of taking on an and refracted, but also, as Talbot put it, the fact that into discontinuous fragments, a kind of ruthlessly anecdotal or entirely personal character. Geoffrey Batchen “however numerous the objects—however complicated unharmonious vision later to be associated with the poetry Technical innovation was a hallmark of early the arrangement—the Camera depicts