Carleton Watkins (1830-1912) achieved international success with his startling renditions of Yosemite Valley. Using mammoth plate photography, his images were among the first of the wild terrain and dramatic vistas viewed by the public on the East coast and abroad. Watkins toted his giant mammoth plate camera to vantage points among the rocks and hills to achieve the dramatic large images that captivated the public.
Little is known of Watkins’ early career. This exhibit places his work among his most important contemporaries and investigates Watkins’ previously unknown early career as a daguerreotypist with roots in the California Gold Rush.
Senior Getty curator, Weston Naef, has paired these images with similar daguerreotypes that are thematically and stylistically linked, and attributed them to Watkins.
What emerges is a profound historical record. Watkins’ work is the historic framework for the visual beginnings of the artistic tradition in California, argues Naef. “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,†said Naef.
Watkins traveled throughout the Pacific Coast photographing San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Columbia River, Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroad sites and California missions. He chronicled California’s disappearing agricultural legacy in Kern County and the San Gabriel Valley.
Paired with Watkins’ photos are other giants of his time, including Eadweard Muybridge and Charles L. Weed, reflecting their interpersonal relationships and styles.
Most of Watkins’ negatives were lost in 1906 during the San Francisco earthquake. The photographer whose genius brought Yosemite to the world died penniless. Neaf has created a fine monument to his legacy, where Watkins takes his place comfortably among the giants in his profession and in nature at the Getty.
Dialogue Among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California is on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum, October 14 – March 1, 2009. For more information visit www.getty.edu
