by Wm B Becker
The first photographic portraits were objects of wonder. From tentative beginnings in 1840, the practice of capturing a person’s “perfect image and identity” with a camera became an industry, an art form, and a means for Americans from all walks of life to send personal and often intimate messages about themselves into the future.
Based on the first-ever public exhibit of photographs in the home of photography’s inventor, Louis Daguerre, this selection of more than 200 American portrait photographs includes images of abolitionists and slaves, firemen and flirts, brick-makers and literary women, crossdressers and chicken-pluckers. There are superb examples from America’s first masters of photography: Southworth & Hawes of Boston, Jeremiah Gurney of New York, and M.A. Root of Philadelphia, as well as outstanding works by obscure and unknown artists.
Daguerre’s American Legacy also investigates the secret codes used to send hidden messages in some of the world’s earliest portrait photographs. It explores the collaboration of sitter and photographer in the creation of images that project the subject’s identity and personality.
These compelling portraits, collected over a 45-year period by Wm. B. Becker, also reveal much about American life in the 19th century, including the roles of work and family, of affinity groups and leisure, of faith and humor. From its origins in recording the unadorned appearance of the human face, American portrait photography evolved into a means of communicating personal attributes beyond the merely documentary: by the end of the century, people were shown conversing with ghosts, struggling through faux blizzards created in the studio— even confronting their doppelgangers.
(328 pages, over 200 color photos, 7 x 9.4 inches.)
Leave a Reply