Description
Book SynopsisA fascinating and indispensable book.Christopher Knight, Los Angeles TimesBest Books of 2018The GuardianGold Medal for Contribution to Publishing,2018 California Book Awards Carleton Watkins (18291916) is widely considered the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century and arguably the most influential artist of his era. He is best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Watkins made his first trip to Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove in 1861 just as the Civil War was beginning. His photographs of Yosemite were exhibited in New York for the first time in 1862, as news of the Union's disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg was landing in newspapers and while the Matthew Brady Studio's horrific photographs of Antietam were on view. Watkins's work tied the West to Northern cultural traditions and played a key role in pledging the once-wavering West to Union. Motivated by Watkins's pictures, Congress would pass legislati
Trade Review"A fascinating and indispensable book." -- Christopher Knight, * Los Angeles Times *
"The more that Green reveals about this enigmatic figure the more you want to see. As Green does with the events of Watkins’ life, he builds a web of beauty and risk, of boom and bust, and of serenity and exploitation in and in between Watkins’ pictures. There are still plenty of shadows, but Green puts us in a better place to see into them." -- David D'Arcy, * San Francisco Chronicle *
"The book is convincing in its central argument, relating the sublimity of Watkins’s photography to American Transcendentalism, particularly the poetry of Emerson. It is also quite beautiful on the meanings of early Californian culture. In this sense Green’s research is not just about Watkins, but about the significance of the American West, and in some ways the definition of America itself. Ultimately, the book makes a strong case for photography as the first and most American art: much like Watkins’s work,
Making the West American is at once technical and transcendent." * Aperture *
"This is highly effective scholarship that maps out art, politics and science in which Watkins takes his place alongside his fellow photographer Eadweard Muybridge." * Art Newspaper *
"Carleton Watkins is a treasure of a book, which hopefully will bring more attention to this particular photographer’s work and achievement. With its numerous illustrations of photographs discussed by the author, in all likelihood a reader will come away with a deep sense of appreciation of both the artist in question but also his biographer." -- Jörg M. Colberg, * Conscientious Photography Magazine *
"Tyler Green’s marvellous biography of the gold rush photographer Carleton Watkins, who more or less created the image of America’s midwest, is all startling drama in both the life and art." -- Laura Cumming, * The Guardian *
"Green’s clearly written chronological narrative traces Watkins’s life and career. His inclusion of many of Watkins’s most notable photographs enriches the portrait of a photographer whose work left an indelible mark on an expanding country. This is a book to be appreciated both textually and visually."
* Foreword Reviews *
"The most meticulously researched portrait of the photographer to date, adding a treasure trove of compelling new details. . . . Green skillfully weaves a web of historical context around Watkins, placing him and his photographs as connectors to major cultural, political, and industrial changes, most especially the burgeoning conservation movement, the railroad industry and settlement of the West, and the men and women who shaped the region." * Oregon Historical Quarterly *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Sunrise in the Foothills of the Catskill Mountains
2. Arriving in California
3. Creating Western Culture at Black Point
4. Secession or Union?
5. To Yosemite in Wartime
6. Sharing Yosemite
7. Exhibiting Yosemite in Wartime
8. Expanding the Western Landscape
9. The Birth of the Nature Park Idea
10. Assisting American Science
11. To Oregon (for Industry)
12. Volcanic Landscapes
13. Basking in Achievement, Building a Business
14. Celebrating Gilded Age Wealth
15. Taking Shasta, Discovering Glaciers
16. The Boom Years
17. San Francisco’s Borasca
18. The Comeback
19. Creating Semi-tropical California
20. Showing California Its History
21. Enter William H. Lawrence
22. Rebuilding a Business
23. Mapping from the Mountaintops
24. Becoming Agricultural
25. Traveling the West (Again)
26. The New Industrial Agriculture near Bakersfi eld, California
27. The Last Great Picture
28. The Long, Slow End
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
