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Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), Yosemite Valley from the “Best General View,” No. 2, 1866, Albumen silver print, 41 x 52.2 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 85.XM.11.3. |
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J. Paul Getty Museum Dialogue among Giants presents the work of San Francisco-based photographer Carleton Watkins in the context of the birth and early evolution of photography in California. The more than 150 works in the exhibition come from private collections and institutions across the country as well as the Getty Museum’s own extensive holdings of more than 1,700 pictures by Watkins. The exhibition presents Watkins’s work, as it has never before been shown, in the context of his most important contemporaries. Organized thematically, the exhibition includes mammoth plate photographs Watkins made in Yosemite at the height of his career, panoramas of San Francisco, and photographs he made along the Pacific Coast and in Southern California. The exhibition also investigates Watkins’s previously unknown early career as a daguerreotypist, finding the roots of his artistic vision in California’s Gold Rush era. "Dialogue among Giants is a tour-de-force achievement for the Museum’s Department of Photographs,” explains Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “The exhibition showcases both the depth of our extensive holdings of photographs and the great expertise of our staff. It represents the result of many years of research by Weston Naef, work that will be seen as a tremendous contribution to the field. The works on view will also provide a spectacular window into the pictorial history of California.” Considered one of the most influential American photographers working before Alfred Stieglitz, Watkins (American, 1829-1916) was exceptionally productive. He made thousands of pictures in a career that spanned the half-century from about 1850, when he arrived in California, to the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed his San Francisco studio and all his glass negatives. During that time, he achieved international fame for his Yosemite photographs, which he created using the largest available camera, one designed to expose mammoth plate negatives. Applying a remarkably innovative visual sense, Watkins traveled the western United States, making historically significant photographs of its mountains, coastline, vast natural resources, and burgeoning cities. “His photographs were as perceptive as the words of a poet and they provide a unique personal vision of the birth and growth of California,” says Weston Naef, senior curator in the Getty Museum’s Department of Photographs. Despite Watkins’s dominant role in establishing an outdoor photographic tradition in California, his first years in photography are obscure and the exact process by which his genius was nurtured remains mysterious. Not long after settling in California, Watkins found mining unsatisfying and took up photography full-time. He began making daguerreotypes of mining scenes as an independent “outdoor man” for established portrait studios, including those of his mentor, Robert Vance, his partners George Johnson and James M. Ford, as well as publisher George Fardon. The exhibition examines Watkins’s beginnings as a daguerreotypist, before he made his first mammoth plate prints. Watkins’s mammoth plates are paired with visually and thematically similar daguerreotypes — the majority by previously unknown photographers — which are now being attributed to Watkins. He made, possibly, hundreds of daguerreotypes and with that training became one of the 19th century’s most astute witnesses. Dialogue among Giants also places Watkins in the context of the greatest mammoth plate photographers and publishers working in San Francisco in his time, including Thomas Houseworth, Eadweard Muybridge, and Charles L. Weed. These men carried on visual dialogues, often photographing side-by-side, most notably at the Vernal and Nevada Falls in Yosemite. Although debate continues, Watkins is now believed to have been the first person to photograph Yosemite, leading his peers to the best viewpoints from which to picture the valley and its environs. The culture of 19th-century San Francisco encouraged visual exchanges; the many panoramic photographs of the city further demonstrate this. Watkins pioneered the photographic panorama, assembling multiple daguerreotypes into continuous views in the 1850s. By the 1860s and 1870s, Watkins was joined by his contemporaries atop the city’s Nob Hill, the vantage point from which five panoramas in the exhibition were made. Although Watkins created his best-known photographs in Yosemite and San Francisco, he also did significant work up and down the Pacific Coast. The exhibition features pictures of the Columbia River in Oregon, sites along the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, and of California’s once noble 18th-century missions. It also includes work he did in Southern California, including pictures of Kern County canals and San Gabriel Valley orchards. Watkins’s life was filled with moments of great glory and huge disappointments. In the 1860s, his Yosemite photographs brought him celebrity as far away as Paris, but just a decade later he experienced a painful financial reversal. In the end, he was an impoverished and demoralized genius, living for a time with his wife and children in a railroad car. Ultimately, Watkins died a pauper in the Napa State Hospital in 1916 after a life that brought him into dialogue with the many giants of his era. Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California is curated by Weston Naef, senior curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. |
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Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), The Dalles, Extremes of High & Low Water, 92 Feet, Columbia River, Oregon, about 1883, Albumen silver print, 36.8 x 53.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 92.XM.96.1.
Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), Star Oil Works, Los Angeles County, 1876-77, Albumen silver print, 38.4 x 52.2 cm, Lent by a private collection, EX.2008.6.114.
Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), Cape Horn, Columbia River, Oregon, negative, 1867; print by Isaiah West Taber, about 1881-83, Albumen silver print, 40.5 x 52.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 85.XM.11.2.
Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), The Domes from Moran Point, No. 676, about 1880, Albumen silver print, 39.4 x 50.5 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.XP.220.28.
Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916), Agassiz Rock and the Yosemite Falls, from Union Point, No. 844, about 1878, Albumen silver print, 54.4 x 39.2 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2004.70. |
Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916, Sugarloaf Islands at Fisherman’s Bay, Farallon Islands, about 1869, Albumen silver print, 41 x 54.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 85.XM.11.22. |
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Simon Alexandre-Clément Denis, Flemish, 1786-1801, Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome, Oil on panel, 13-5/16 x 15-1/4", 2005.31. |
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Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, French, View of Subiaco, about 1818, Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 11-1/4 x 17", Private collection.
Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, French, View of Subiaco, about 1818, Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 11-1/4 x 17", Private collection.
Jean-Victor Bertin, French, View in the Ile-de-France, about 1810-1813, Oil on canvas, 14 x 18-11/16", 2008.2.
Louise-Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont, French, 1826, The Falls at Tivoli, Oil on paper laid down on canvas, Framed: 28-3/8 x 16-5/8", Museum Purchase, Art Trust Fund and The Fine Arts Museums Foundation, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. |
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J. Paul Getty Museum This exhibition focuses on the practice of painting sur le motif — in nature — as it developed in Europe during the late 1700s and early 1800s. In the decades around 1800, a golden age of painting en plein air (outdoors) emerged in Italy. Artists from France, Germany, Great Britain, and Scandinavia came south to work in the Italian landscape, where the effects of changing light and weather were ideal for experimenting in oil sketches — small, rapidly executed paintings usually made as preparatory studies for more ambitious compositions completed in the studio. Soon the oil sketch came to be considered an autonomous work of art in its own right. In 1816 the French Academy established the Prix de Rome du paysage historique (Rome Prize for Historic Landscape) specifically for landscape, officially signifying the new prestige of landscape painting. Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes In his influential treatise published in 1800, Practical Elements for Perspective Painting for Artists' Use (a copy of which is on view in the exhibition), Valenciennes argued that landscape painting appeals to the same humanistic and moral values as history painting, long considered the most prestigious form of painting. He also encouraged young landscapists to work in nature, using the oil sketch to rapidly capture changing conditions of atmosphere and weather. Valenciennes's treatise remained an essential reference for painters throughout the 1800s. A Golden Age for Plein Air Painting Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld created this view of the small hill town of Subiaco, near Rome, during an extended trip to Italy. The painting is precisely executed, with an enamel-like surface and a cool, luminous atmosphere. Bidauld exquisitely rendered the sunlight of a warm Italian afternoon, adding depth to the colors of nature. After visiting Rome, many landscape artists traveled farther south to paint the landscape near Naples, including the small town of Sorrento overlooking the Adriatic Sea and the dramatic coastal views of the Gulf of Naples. Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond won the Prix de Rome du paysage historique (Rome Prize for Historic Landscape) in 1821, which allowed him to study at the French Academy in Rome. He frequently took field trips as far as Naples and Sicily, painting numerous oil sketches of the Italian countryside. Capturing the Fugitive in Nature One of only a few women artists in Europe in the early 1800s, Sarazin de Belmont was a pupil of Valenciennes. She followed his recommendation to practice painting the effects of light on running water, seen here at the falls at Tivoli. With a light brush and quick stroke, she captured the rushing water and the reflecting sunlight. Tivoli, an ancient city in the Sabine Mountains popular with Roman emperors, boasted waterfalls, grottoes, ravines, and Roman temples and villas that were a popular motif for landscapists beginning in the 1600s. A New Interest Jean-Victor Bertin, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes's leading pupil, established an important studio in Paris and trained several of the winners of the Prix de Rome du paysage historique (Rome Prize for Historic Landscape), including Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond. Bertin carefully composed his landscapes in the workshop based on his observations of nature and often depicted historical or mythological scenes. He also made several topographic views of sites in the Île de France, the region around Paris. In this view, he focused on articulating how the light transforms the architectural forms into almost geometric masses. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot combined the principles of classical landscape with a more personal approach to nature and a poetic sense of color and light. Trained by Jean-Victor Bertin, Corot spent years traveling and painting outdoors in Italy. After his return to France, he continued painting outdoors and worked frequently in the Île-de-France. In the summer of 1830, Corot visited northern and central France, painting the countryside. In this painting he focused on the strong geometric forms of a village near Orléans. Corot rendered this scene on the spot and may have kept it as a reference for light effects in other works painted in his studio. Corot had a profound influence on the next generation of French landscape painters, who would become known as the Impressionists. |
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French, Houses near Orléans (Maisons aux Environs d'Orléans), about 1830, Oil on paper mounted on millboard, 11-1/4 x 15-3/16", 2002.35. |
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Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas, French, Sketches of Procession, about 1877, Graphite, 95.GD.35.4. |
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J. Paul Getty Museum From wicked caricatures to wry satirical observations of social or political injustice, drawings have harnessed the power of humor for centuries. While some works were intended as intimate objects to be viewed only by individuals or small groups, others were made into prints with a wider agenda. Just as social structures and art have changed through the centuries, humor in drawings has varied to fit the tastes of different periods. This exhibition is selected from the Museum's European drawings collection — along with several loans from the Huntington Library — to demonstrate how artists in previous centuries used the immediacy of drawing to make their points. While many of these works are still funny today, aspects of some of them may now seem curious or even distasteful. Caricature The well-judged pen lines and delicate washes of this drawing highlight the man's awkward, bird-like features, from his beakish nose and spindly legs to his giant, duck-toed feet. The figure's meager shadow emphasizes his isolation, further increased by the absence of any setting. The man's puffy wig, turkey-wattle cravat, and oversize coat add to his ridiculous appearance. Drawings such as this were avidly collected in 18th-century Venice. Innuendo In this image, a frail old man, isolated and placed low on the empty page, hobbles along with the aid of two canes. As is often the case with Goya's drawings, an inscription in Spanish (translated in the work's title) holds the scene's meaning, both suggesting the elderly mans mental and physical frailty and hinting at his sexual impotence. This sheet, drawn when Goya was in his mid-70s, may be a meditation on the artist's own increasing age. Playfulness This drawing is a page from one of Edgar Degas' sketchbooks. In the sheet, which verges on caricature, Degas studied the faces of figures attending a funeral. Despite the occasion's somber mood, the artist exaggerated the amusing aspects of his subjects, from the protruding nose and sloped forehead of the man at bottom center to the pronounced noses of the three women in profile at upper right. This sketchbook also contains studies of dancers and singers as well as portraits of Degas's friends. Comic Performance At the center of this stage-like composition is one of the most popular commedia dell'arte characters, the figure of Harlequin. Recognizable by his diamond-pattern pants, he draws up a contract as Mezzetin looks on. A young woman, still holding a quill pen in her hand, is led offstage by the Doctor while she looks desperately across the stage at her young suitor, who wears a displeased expression. This drawing was made in preparation for a print identified as Harlequin as Procurer, which may suggest that the woman has just been signed up for prostitution. Social and Political Satire In this allegorical representation of the sin of avarice, de Gheyn attributed the human trait of greed to a realistically rendered frog. The frog bears a haughty expression while uncouthly grasping for the coins between its legs. With another foot, the frog holds a sphere, symbolizing the grasp of greed on the world. An avid student of nature, de Gheyn created a large number of allegorical and anatomical drawings of animals; this work may have once been a part of a larger sheet of studies. |
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Leonardo da Vinci, Italian, Milan, Caricature of a Man with Bushy Hair, about 1495, Pen and brown ink, 2-5/8 x 2 1/8", 84.GA.647.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian, Venice, Caricature of a Man Wearing an Overcoat, 1753-1762, Pen and black ink, gray wash, 8-1/4 x 5-1/2, 2002.26.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, He Can No Longer at the Age of 98, about 1819-1823, Brush and india ink wash, 9-3/16 x 5-11/16", 84.GA.646. |
Claude Gillot, French, Scene from the Italian Comedy (recto); Figure Study (verso), about 1700, Pen and black ink and reddish wash (recto); pen and black ink (verso), 6-5/16 x 8-1/2", 84.GA.66. |
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