Highlights: Photography

Selections from the Amon Carter's vast collection of photographs, negatives, and transparencies

By Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Space Defined with Lights in a Church in Havana (1942) by Carlotta M. CorpronAmon Carter Museum of American Art

The Amon Carter houses over 45,000 photographic prints, making the museum one of the country’s major repositories of American photography. The holdings span the history of the photographic medium, from one of the earliest daguerreotypes made in the United States to inkjet prints being made today.

Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby), David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, ca. 1845, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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Among the earliest works in the collection is a salted paper print of Ojibway Indian Peter Jones made by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in about 1845.

[Exeter, New Hampshire, volunteers leaving for the Mexican War], Unknown photographer, ca. 1846, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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Equally rare is the Amon Carter’s series of daguerreotypes documenting the United States’ war with Mexico in 1846–48.

President Lincoln on Battle-Field of Antietam, from Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Alexander Gardner, 1862, printed 1866, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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Later nineteenth-century photographs in the collection include Alexander Gardner’s sketchbook of the Civil War

Mariposa Grove. Big Trees (ca. 1880) by William Henry JacksonAmon Carter Museum of American Art

and several hundred landscapes by expeditionary photographers such as William Henry Jackson.

[Two women posed with a chair], Albert Sands Southworth, ca. 1850, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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Also represented are works by great daguerreotypists Albert Southworth and Josiah Hawes.

Gertrude Käsebier, Photographer, Clara Sipprell, 1910/1913, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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The Amon Carter is also a repository for works by major twentieth-century photographers. Particular strengths of the collection include early twentieth-century pictorial photography,

Penny Picture Display, Savannah, Walker Evans, 1936, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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and documentary works by noted American photographers.

Space Defined with Lights in a Church in Havana, Carlotta M. Corpron, 1942, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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The Amon Carter also holds within its Artist Archives collection the photographic estates of several American photographers, including Carlotta M. Corpron,

In the Meadow (1954) by Nell DorrAmon Carter Museum of American Art

Nell Dorr,

Storm from La Bajada Hill, New Mexico (1946) by Laura GilpinAmon Carter Museum of American Art

Laura Gilpin,

Las Tres Virgenes Volcano at Sunset, near Mezquital, Baja California, Mexico, August 12, 1966 (1966) by Eliot PorterAmon Carter Museum of American Art

Eliot Porter,

[Ivan Mestrovic's hands], Clara Sipprell, 1926, From the collection of: Amon Carter Museum of American Art

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Helen M. Post, Clara Sipprell,

A JA Cook Inspecting His Stew, JA Ranch, Texas (1908) by Erwin E. SmithAmon Carter Museum of American Art

Erwin E. Smith,

Boardwalk, Long Island (1910) by Karl StrussAmon Carter Museum of American Art

and Karl Struss.

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