CARLETON WATKINS
2019-09-16Though made within the first decades of photography’s invention, Watkins’s work, and his perception of the western landscape, remaindeeply relevant today. Theexhibition includes dramatic views of a still little-known Yosemite Valley, the Columbia River in Oregon, and a near-surreal depiction of Mission San Luis Rey in Southern California, situated in an empty expanse. Other images include an overview of the burgeoning city of Portland, Oregon in 1867, and deer grazing on the grounds of a Menlo Park estate in the late 1870s. Watkins’s large-format albumen prints, each measuring approximately 15 x 20 inches, were among the largest photographs of their time. To make photographic prints at this scale Watkins used massiveglass-plate negatives painstakingly coated and developed on site, requiring the transportation ofhis cumbersome tent, glass plates, and chemicals into the wilderness.
Opposite – Mission San Luis Rey, ca. 1877
Exhibition runs through to October 19th, 2019
Fraenkel Gallery
49 Geary Street
San Francisco
94108 CA
