Eloquent Vistas: The Art of Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection

Press Release

This exhibition features over 50 nineteenth-century photographic landscapes drawn from George Eastman House’s collection of over 3,500 prints and 6,500 stereographs of nineteenth-century American landscapes. These photographs are complemented by works by George Inness and Thomas Moran from the Montclair Art Museum’s collection.

Eloquent Vistas includes well-known photographers of the era: Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, John Moran, Carlton E. Watkins, William H. Rau, William Bell, and others. These photographers’ explorations of the spectacular West and other locales, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and the west coast, are undeniably impressive. They documented the American land for government-sponsored geological and geographical surveys, for the railroad companies, as records of the Civil War, and for the tourist trade. Many accomplished their commissions in a truly artistic way, so that today we appreciate their images more for their aesthetic value than for their topographical depiction of place. This exhibition, organized by MAM Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky and MAM Curator of Native American Art Twig Johnson, celebrates their achievements.

Eloquent Vistas is made possible with support from Exhibition Angels Rita and Bernard Berkowitz, Bobbie and Bob Constable, Bobbi Brown and Steven Plofker, Gregg Seibert, Adrian A. Shelby, Denise and Ira Wagner, and Margo and Frank Walter.