Special Exhibitions
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Past Exhibitions
Cape Horn near Celilo, 1867. Gilman Paper Company Collection
Strait of Carquennes, from South Vallejo, 1868–69 Gilman Paper Company Collection
Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception
October 5, 1999–January 9, 2000
Drawings, Prints, and Photographs Galleries, The Howard Gilman Gallery, 2nd floor

This major exhibition demonstrates the artistry of Carleton Watkins (1829-1916), the finest American landscape photographer of the 19th century. A New Yorker who moved to California with the Gold Rush, Watkins made his name photographing the awe-inspiring Yosemite Valley in the 1860s. His large albumen silver prints are dazzling tours de force that propose, with crystalline clarity, an ideal harmony between man and nature. The controlled grandeur of his vision is displayed in over 70 exquisite mammoth plate prints, while the brilliance of his compositional eye is featured in binocular video displays of stereographs that recreate the sensational and perceptual early form of popular entertainment.

Made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
Additional major support provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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.