Watkins's uncommon technical virtuosity and artistic talent won praise at home and an award at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. That year, he opened the storefront Yosemite Art Gallery to sell his prints in San Francisco, and he also made new pictures, the most glorious of his career, in Oregon and along the Columbia River. He made two views at Multnomah Falls: one describes the falls as a sheer straight plunge of uninterrupted verticality; this one uses the distance between upper and lower falls to play hide-and seek with the towering trees, cascading water, and hidden pool.
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Title:Multnomah Falls, Oregon
Artist:Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916)
Date:1867, printed later
Medium:Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions:Image: 52.1 x 38.7 cm (20 1/2 x 15 1/4 in.)
Classification:Photographs
Credit Line:Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Object Number:2005.100.174
Inscription: [no inscriptions or annotations visible]
National Park Service at Yosemite Collection; [Helios Arts, Inc., New York]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, August 4, 1977
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Howard Gilman Gallery: Inaugural Installation," October 16, 1997–February 1, 1998.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception," May 28–September 7, 1999.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception," October 11, 1999–January 9, 2000.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception," February 20–May 7, 2000.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Photography: Processes, Preservation, and Conservation," January 30–May 6, 2001.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940," June 3–September 1, 2008.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 6, 2012–January 4, 2013.
Beijing. National Museum of China. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 8–May 9, 2013.
Naef, Weston J., and James Wood. Era of Exploration: The Rise of Landscape Photography in the American West, 1860–1885. Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1975. no. 25.
Watkins, Carleton E. Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon, edited by James Alinder. Carmel, Calif.: Friends of Photography, Carmel, 1980. no. 49.
Barnet, Peter, and Atsuyuki Nakahara. Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art: Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tokyo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. no. 80, pp. 137, 241.
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