News Release: 8 February 2000

Exhibition of Masterworks by Carleton Watkins Incorporates Victorian-Era Stereoscopes and State-of-the-Art Three-Dimensional Imaging Technology on Interactive Computers

Washington, DC–Visitors to Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception will not only see Watkins' breathtaking photographs of the American West, but also will be able to explore his work on interactive computers, using state-of-the-art three-dimensional imaging technology, and on original Victorian-era stereoscopes. Watkins (1829-1916) is today considered the finest American landscape photographer of the nineteenth century. The exhibition of more than 90 photographs, on view in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, 20 February through 7 May 2000, presents many photographs never reproduced or exhibited before this tour. The show was previously seen in San Francisco and New York; Washington is its final venue.

The exhibition is supported by The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In-kind support is provided by SGI and Stereographics.

"Carleton Watkins' pioneering work, created more than a century ago, remains unsurpassed in its aesthetic sophistication, poetic vision, and technical craftsmanship. Watkins worked under extremely difficult conditions but was able to produce some of the most accomplished photographs ever made," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.

With photographs on loan from museum, corporate, university, and private collections throughout North America, the exhibition includes more than 70 mammoth or large-format prints (many measuring up to 18 by 22 inches), several panoramic photographs--works placed side-by-side to orchestrate a vast sweep of visual terrain and many stereo views. The stereo views--two small photographs, which when placed in a special optical viewer give their beholder the startling sensation of three-dimensional depth will be hung in the exhibition and also displayed in Victorian-era stereoscopes and in a novel interactive computer base.

Work from Watkins' famous series of the pristine and then virtually unknown Yosemite Valley will be on view. These images helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to sign the Yosemite Bill in 1864, an important precedent in establishing the present system of national parks. The photographs were exhibited at the 1867 International Exposition in Paris, where they were awarded a first-prize medal, and were later seen by Napoleon III. There are also many other, often lyrical, images that captured not only the physical landscape of the American West, including the Columbia River and the rugged Pacific Coast, but also the burgeoning mining activity in the Sierra foothills that followed the Gold Rush and the boom towns that sprang forth along the routes of the newly built Central and Southern Pacific railroads. In addition to sweeping vistas, there are studies of trees and surprising close-ups of lily pads and a crate of peaches.

Born and raised in Oneonta, New York, Watkins settled in San Francisco at the height of the Gold Rush, taking up the still-new medium of photography in the mid-1850s. During his career of more than 30 years he intrepidly traveled the western United States, hauling heavy equipment and supplies to remote areas and at times losing glass-plate negatives when his mule tripped. Nonetheless, he made thousands of remarkable, historically important photographs that were admired by an international audience. By 1895, however, poor business sense, failing health, and bad luck left him and his family living in a railroad boxcar. In 1906, when he was almost totally blind, much of his life's work was destroyed by the most violent earthquake to strike San Francisco. Watkins died ten years later, a patient at the Napa State Hospital for the Insane.

The exhibition catalogue, published by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, features more than 100 tritone plates--including four gatefolds illustrating Watkins' rarely reproduced panoramas--and twenty duotone illustrations. An introduction by Maria Morris Hambourg, curator in charge of the department of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a scholarly essay by Douglas R. Nickel, associate curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and biographical material by Peter E. Palmquist, an independent scholar and Watkins biographer, are included. The catalogue is available in softcover ($35) in the Gallery's Shops, through the Gallery Web site at www.nga.gov, or by calling 1-800-697-9350. A hardcover version ($60), co-published with Harry N. Abrams, is also available through the Gallery or at booksellers nationwide.

Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception was curated by Nickel and Hambourg; the organizing curator for the National Gallery is Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs. The exhibition was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and with special cooperation from the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov

If you are a member of the press and would like to be added to our press list, click here.