Photography in California

Magazine Antiques, March, 2001 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

When the news spread that gold had been discovered at Captain Sutter's sawmill in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, would-be prospectors everywhere pulled up stakes and headed west in search of their fortune. Less well known is the fact that in their wake a handful of entrepreneurial photographers also headed west to cash in by photographing some of the newly rich. The first to disembark at San Francisco's harbor on New Year's Day 1849 was Richard H. Carr (1818-1888), whose daguerreotype studio was open for business by January 25. Photography grew apace with the settlement of the region, which was granted statehood in 1850. By the end of 1865 there were nearly eight hundred individuals engaged in the photography business.

An exhibition that chronicles the history of photography in the state is on view at the Oakland Museum of California from March 3 to May 27. The two hundred photographs on view in Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850-2000 were selected from this museum's collection of more than one million images that encompass many photographic techaiques--from daguerreotypes to polaroids--and all genres: fine art, documentary, commercial, vernacular, and scientific. The photographs in the exhibition are accompanied by related objects, such as cameras, carte de visite albums, periodicals, and frames.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century California emerged as a center for the practitioners of photography as an art form. The hallmark of this group was a great interest in the various ways of printing a negative, including manipulating the chemicals to produce diverse effects from print to print.

Most of the earliest daguerreotypes were portraits. Not until glass negatives were used to make paper prints in a variety of sizes was landscape photography widely practiced. In 1861 well-known photographers like Carleton Watkins transported fragile and cumbersome glass-plate negatives to Yosemite to capture some of this country's most majestic scenery The market for landscape photographs and city views increased with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, which made California a popular destination for tourists who purchased photographs as souvenirs.

Peculiar to California was a large immigrant Chinese population and an indigenous American Indian presence. These groups' customs, manners, and even appearance, fulfilled the attraction to exotic subject matter characteristic of art photographers. However, since these photographs were difficult to sell, despite the fact that they were frequently exhibited, even such familiar figures as Edward Weston, were forced to rely on portrait commissions to sustain their living. Still later, social reformers found ample material to photograph in California--from migrant farmworkers to unemployed factory workers.

Weston once wrote that "Everything worth photographing is in California," a statement borne out by the fact that many of the country's leading photographers worked there. Among them were Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward S. Curtis, Dorothea Lange, Eadweard Muybridge, Man Ray and Carrie Mae Weems, all of whom are represented by photographs in this exhibition.

The catalogue of the exhibition includes essays by Peter E. Palmquist, Naomi Rosenblum, Sally Stein, and Andy Grundberg. It is edited by Drew Heath Johnson and published by the Oakland Museum of California in association with W. W. Norton and Company.