California Landscape
Vintage Photographs by Watkins, Dassonville, Lange, Noskowiak and Simpson. 1865-1940.
Exhibit: November - December, 2004
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ANSEL ADAMS
"Half Dome, Merced River, Winter"
1930s, 40s, or 50s, silver print, printed later
7 1/2 x 9 1/2, On a 16 1/2 x 13 1/2 mount
Special Edition stamp on verso.
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ANSEL ADAMS
"Forest Detail, Winter"
1930s, 40s, or 50s, silver print, printed later
9 1/2 x 7 1/2, On a 16 1/2 x 13 1/2 mount
Special Edition stamp on verso.
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ANSEL ADAMS
"Vernal Fall"
1930s, 40s, or 50s, silver print, printed later
9 1/4 x 7, On a 16 1/2 x 13 1/2 mount
Special Edition stamp on verso.
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ANNIE BRIGMAN
"The Dying Cedar"
ca. 1907, silver print
1900s
9 1/2 x 6 1/2, titled in pencil on verso.
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ANNIE BRIGMAN
"Elegie"
1923, silver print, 1920s
9 5/8 x 7 3/4, signed and dated in ink on recto
credit label, titled and annotated
"A Land of Bared Boughs and Sighing Winds"
Marpussa-Stephen Phillips in pencil on the
reverse of the layered mount.
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ANNIE BRIGMAN
"The Tree Frog"
ca. 1910, silver print, 1910
7 3/4 x 9 5/8
Signed by artist in pencil on
lower left corner of mount under
photograph
titled in pencil on verso.
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WILLIAM E. DASSONVILLE
"The High Sierra"
ca. 1925, vintage silver print on Dassonville
"Charcoal Black" paper, 1925
8 x 10, unsigned, unmounted with
photographer's estate stamp on verso.
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WILLIAM E. DASSONVILLE
"Trees, San Francisco"
ca. 1925, vintage silver print on Dassonville
"Charcoal Black" paper, 1925 9 x 11
unsigned, unmounted with photographer's
estate stamp on verso.
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More Exhibition Photographs
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California Landscape: Vintage Photographs
The California landscape and photographers have been at a standoff since they first met. The challenge of capturing the beautiful grandeur laid out by California was met by photographers such as Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) and William Dassonville (1879-1957) with technical expertise, new equipment, and an eye for beauty.
Carleton Watkins was drawn from Oneonta, New York by the gold of California. In the west, he stumbled into his famed photographic career. Shooting primarily landscapes which typically showed a harmony between the man-made and the natural, Watkins developed a style of sharp focus and amazing detail. Being one of the first to travel through photographically unexplored western areas, Watkins took the opportunity to mold classical views, especially in Yosemite, before the subject matter became commonplace. For most of his work, Watkins used a camera back specially crafted by a carpenter allowing him to expose glass negatives large enough to create his signature 16"x20" mammoth prints.
William Dassonville worked in the Pictorialist style. His work does not share the sharp focus of Watkins before him or the soon to come f/64. He worked in abstraction and form as evident in his 'Ship Deck, San Francisco.' His landcapes are emotionally charged such as 'Storm, San Francisco.' When faced with a shortage of platinum printing paper, he created his own named Charcoal Black which met or helped form the exacting standards of a young Ansel Adams.
The frail and bent human forms in Dorothea Lange's FSA work are what typically grab the viewer's attention. But, the setting of these pictures is just as important a feature of her work, effectively communicating the desperation and poverty of the times. Her 'One Hundred Years of Independence' shows only a broken down car left behind in the desert.
Member of The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD)
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