Renowned Civil War photographer Mathew Brady (ca. 1823-1896) remains an elusive and paradoxical figure. To accompany an exhibition opening at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in September 1997, Smithsonian curator of photographs Mary Panzer has created a tribute to Brady and his contribution to the ongoing national interest in the Civil War. 79 duotone photos. 72 b&w illus.
The first narrative biography of the Civil War's pioneering visual historian, Mathew Brady, known as the “father of American photography.” Mathew Brady's attention to detail, flair for composition, and technical mastery helped establish the photograph as a thing of value. In the 1840s and '50s, “Brady of Broadway” photographed such dignitaries as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Dolley Madison, Horace Greeley, the Prince of Wales, and Jenny Lind. But it was during the Civil War that Brady's photography became an epochal part of American history. The Civil War was the first war in history to leave a detailed photographic record, and Brady knew better than anyone the dual power of the camera to record and excite, to stop a moment in time and preserve it. More than ten thousand war images are attributed to the Brady studio. But as Wilson shows, while Brady himself accompanied the Union army to the first major battle at Bull Run, he was so shaken by the experience that throughout the rest of the war he rarely visited battlefields except well before or after a major battle, instead sending teams of photographers to the front. Mathew Brady is a gracefully written and beautifully illustrated biography of an American legend-a businessman, a suave promoter, a celebrated portrait artist, and, most important, a historian who chronicled America during the gravest moments of the nineteenth century.
Considers five documentary sequences or narratives: the antebellum portraits of Mathew Brady and others; the Civil War albums of Alexander Gardner, George Barnard and A.J. Russell; the Western survey and landscape photographs of Timothy O'Sullivan, A.J. Russell, and Carleton Watkins; and social photographs and texts by Alfred Stieglitz and Lewis Hine; as well as documentaries inspired by the Depression, esp. Walker Evans's American Photographs.
Discusses how the Civil War photographer constructed an idealized American history based on image as much as fact, portraying a stable republic during its fragmentation and creating a national portrait gallery of immortal leaders. UP.
Astonishingly clear, detailed images recall the drama, agony, and tedium of conflict. Portraits of Lincoln, Grant, Lee, and other notables, plus scenes of landmarks, camps, and battlefields. Captions, notes. 24 cards.
Through his specialized techniques and unique style, this photographer became famous for his photos of presidents, generals, and bloody battles fought during the Civil War.
Mathew Brady recognized that the new art of photography could be more than just a means of capturing people's likenesses in portraits. Beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 and continuing through the entire Civil War, Brady and his employees chronicled the long, bloody conflict, bringing images of war directly to the people. Brady knew the photos would create valuable historical records for later generations. More than any other photographer of his generation, Brady understood photography's great potential and through his influence, he taught others to understand it as well.
Taking advantage of emerging photographic paper printing techniques to create large-format, classically posed portraits, Brady also collaborated with painters such as G.P.A. Healy and Alonzo Chappel, who used his photographs to complete their own heroically scaled images. Contending that Brady's photographs contribute to an ongoing national interest in the Civil War, Panzer concludes that they continue to function as Brady hoped they would, constructing an idealized history in which fact and memory are intertwined.
