Explore the U.S. History in Photographs at Getty Museum

Locomotive on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, near Oakland, Maryland, about 1860. Salted paper print. Image: 16.2 × 16 cm (6 3/8 × 6 5/16 in.). Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1991 (1991.1151). Image: www.metmuseum.org

A new exhibition at Getty Museum will present rare early American photographs

We are used to our digital realities, where social media create a thirst for documentation of the most mundane aspects of our daily lives, and ubiquitousness of images to some degree lessened the value of photographic art. But in the mid-nineteenth century U.S., for instance, photography served a higher purpose: they were instrumental in debates about the country and its place in the world, and also documented the development of the nation. Getty Museum now offers the audience a chance to get a rare insight into the past, exploring forces and movements that shaped the country’s character. 

On the view from February 27th through May 27th, Paper Promises exhibition features rare 19th-century works of photography pioneers, including portraits of notable political and cultural figures, as well as images from the Civil War. The exhibition will include paper negatives and paper photographs, as well as some examples of other pioneering photographic techniques: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, albumen silver prints, a pannotype, and an ivorytype.

Abraham Lincoln, February 1860, Mathew B. Brady (American, about 1823 - 1896). Salted paper print. Image: 19.5 × 14.4 cm (7 11/16 × 5 11/16 in.). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

盖蒂博物馆的一个新展览将展出罕见的早期美国照片。

我们习惯了我们的数字现实，社交媒体为我们日常生活中最平凡的方面创造了一个渴望，图像的无处不在在一定程度上减少了摄影艺术的价值。例如，在19世纪中叶，美国的摄影作品有着更高的目的：它们有助于辩论国家及其在世界上的位置，并记录了国家的发展。盖蒂博物馆现在为观众提供了一个难得的洞察过去的机会，探索塑造国家特征的力量和行动。

从2月27日到5月27日，“Paper Promises”展览展示了19世纪罕见的摄影先驱作品，包括著名的政治和文化人物的肖像，以及美国内战时期的肖像。这次展览将包括纸底片和纸上照片，以及其他一些开创性的摄影技术的例子：银版、双色版、蛋白银版和象牙版。

Portrait of Frederick Langenheim, March 1849, Langenheim Brothers [Frederick and William Langenheim] (American, born Germany, 1841/1842 - 1874). Waxed paper negative. Sheet: 19.4 × 15 cm (7 5/8 × 5 7/8 in.). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles