John Dillwyn Llewelyn, “A Summer’s Evening, Penllergare, August 25, 1854”, albumen print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased as a Gift of Diana and Mallory Walker.
Nineteenth-Century Photographs at the NGA ‘The Eye of the Sun: Nineteenth-Century Photographs from the National Gallery of Art’: Exhibition on first 50 years of Photography celebrates anniversary of its invention and recent acquisitions. September 8 – December 1, 2019 ]]>
Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington
When photography was introduced to the world in 1839, society and culture were poised to undergo profound change. In the 180 years since the French invention of the daguerreotype and the rival British photogenic drawing, the medium has undoubtedly created new ways of seeing, experiencing, and understanding the world.
The exhibition begins with the earliest examples of photography—daguerreotypes and photogenic drawings and salted paper prints by William Henry Fox Talbot—and continues with thematic sections ranging from portraiture to landscape. Featured photographers include Anna Atkins, Édouard Baldus, Lewis Carroll, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Marville, George Barnard, Roger Fenton, Francis Frith, Amélie Guillot-Saguez, Hill and Adamson, Viscountess Jocelyn, John Moran, Eadweard Muybridge, Charles Nègre, Andrew Russell, Augustus Washington, and Carleton Watkins.
“Today photography is so omnipresent in our lives that it can be hard to imagine a world without it. This exhibition takes us back to the exciting nascent years following the birth of the medium, and the many ways that early practitioners explored its possibilities,” said Kaywin Feldman, director, National Gallery of Art, Washington. “The Eye of the Sun is possible due to a series of recent strategic acquisitions of 19th-century photography, allowing us now to offer a deep view of work from this period.”
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