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.
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.
Equally rare is the Amon Carter’s series of daguerreotypes documenting the United States’ war with Mexico in 1846–48.
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.
Also represented are works by great daguerreotypists Albert Southworth and Josiah Hawes.
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,
and documentary works by noted American photographers.
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,
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.