Samuel G. Szabó (Hungarian, active America ca. 1854–61)
Date:
1857
Medium:
Salted paper prints from glass negatives
Dimensions:
From 8.8 x 6.6 cm (3 7/16 x 2 5/8 in.) to 11.5 x 8.8 cm (4 1/2 x 3 7/16 in.)
Classification:
Albums
Credit Line:
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005
Accession Number:
2005.100.551.1
Not on view
Lifter, wife poisoner, forger, sneak thief; cracksman, pickpocket, burglar, highwayman; murderer, counterfeiter, abortionist--each found a place in this gallery of rogues. Photography was first put to service for the identification and apprehension of criminals in the late 1850s. In New York, for example, 450 photographs of known criminals could be viewed by the public in a real rogues' gallery at police headquarters, the portraits arranged by category, such as "Leading pickpockets, who work one, two, or three together, and are mostly English." Little is known of Samuel G. Szabó, his methods or his intentions. He appears to have left his native Hungary in the early or mid-1850s by necessity, but the reason for his exile remains a mystery. In the United States Szabó moved frequently. Between May 1857 and his return to Europe in July 1861 he traveled to New Orleans, Cincinnati, Chicago, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, and New York, settling for a brief period in Baltimore, where he was listed in the city directory as a daguerreotypist. His whereabouts when he made this album are unknown. One may speculate that Szabó made these portraits while working for, or with the cooperation of, the police, and some of the 218 prints in the album appear to be copy prints made from other photographic portraits. But this is more than a collection of mug shots; it is a study of characters by a "photogr[aphic] artist," as Szabó signed the title page of this album. Just as Mathew Brady believed that portraits of America's great men and women held clues to the nobility of their character and could serve as moral and political exemplars to those who contemplated them, others attempted to discern in photographs such as Szabó's physical characteristics of the criminal psyche. Yet, as in Hugh Diamond's portraits of the insane (no. 30), the reading of individual portraits is not always self-evident. Would the serious young man in the overcoat and silk top hat appear roguish without the caption "John McNauth alias Keely alias little hucks / Pick Pocket" below his portrait?
Inscription: Inscribed in black ink on title page, TR: "1860 [illegible]" , C: "Rogues // a Study of Characters // Collected by Samuel G. Szabo // Photogr. Artist"
Howard Ricketts, London; [Harry H. Lunn, Ltd.]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, May 17, 1985
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," May 25, 1993–July 4, 1993.
Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," August 7, 1993–October 2, 1993.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection," June 19, 1994–September 11, 1994.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence," October 1, 1997–January 31, 1998.
Grey Art Gallery, New York University. "Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence," May 19, 1998–July 18, 1998.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play," March 7, 2016–July 31, 2016.
Hambourg, Maria Morris, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Virginia Heckert, and Jeff L. Rosenheim. The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century, Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 96.
An album of portraits of criminals in New York in the 1850's annotated with the nature of their crimes.
Artist: Samuel G. Szabó (Hungarian, active America ca. 1854–61) Date: 1857Medium: Salted paper prints from glass negativesAccession: 2005.100.551.2On view in:Not on view
Artist: Louis-Pierre-Théophile Dubois de Nehaut (French, active Belgium, 1799–1872) Date: 1854–56Medium: 32 salted paper prints, waxed salted paper prints, and albumen silver prints from paper and glass negativesAccession: 2005.100.372.1–.32On view in:Not on view
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