A fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the California gold rush through the lens of the daguerreotype camera The California gold rush was the first major event in American history to be documented in depth by photography. This fascinating volume offers a fresh, comprehensive, and critical look at the people, places, and culture of that historical episode as seen through daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of the era. After gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, thousands made the journey to California, including daguerreotypists who established studios in cities and towns and ventured into the gold fields in specially outfitted photographic wagons. Their images, including portraits, views of cities and gold towns, and miners at work in the field, provide an extraordinary glimpse into the evolution of mining culture and technology, the variety of nationalities and races involved in the mining industry, and the growth of cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento. Including numerous images published here for the first time, this book provides an extraordinary glimpse into the transformation of the American West. Distributed for The Hall Family Foundation in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (September 6, 2019-January 26, 2020) Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (April 4, 2020-July 12, 2020) Yale University Art Gallery (August 28-November 29, 2020)

This stunning volume represents a major photo-historical discovery: it is the first book on Homer Page (1918-1985), a brilliant but overlooked photographer active in the late 1940s and 50s. It focuses on his previously unpublished photographs of New York taken while a Guggenheim Fellow from 1949 to 1950. First recognized by Ansel Adams in 1944, California-born Page exhibited in a major show of young artists at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1946. Four years later, he was invited to participate in MoMA's seminal photography symposium, alongside 10 other prominent photographers, including Walker Evans, Irving Penn, and Aaron Siskind. In photographs that echo those of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Robert Frank, Page uniquely synthesized documentary and artistic concerns. His work as a Guggenheim Fellow--which depicts pedestrians in motion, friends and family members conversing, commuters, children playing, political rallies and protests, and isolated figures resting and watching--offers a fascinating look at New York during the late 1940s and represents the culmination of Page's most important work. The Photographs of Homer Page features a plate section of these compelling and often poignant images together with texts by the artist, a bibliography, and an essay by noted scholar Keith F. Davis examining Page's life and career-- including his connections with Lange, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, and Edouard Steichen. Distributed for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (February 14-June 7, 2009)

A glimpse into the development of the American West through startling photographs of the frontier landscape and the rich culture of American Indian tribes Best known for his Civil War photographs, Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) also created two extraordinary bodies of work depicting the transformation of the American West: Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railway and Scenes in the Indian County. In 1867, after joining the survey team for what became the Kansas Pacific Railroad, Gardner photographed the path of the proposed extension, emphasizing the ease of future railroad construction and economic development, while including studies of American Indians and settlements along the way. The following year, Gardner recorded peace talks with Indian tribes at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Distinctly sympathetic to the plight of the American Indian, Gardner made candid documentation of individual chiefs, their encampments and daily life, burial trees, and the peace proceedings themselves. With a full catalogue raisonne of these two rare series, Alexander Gardner offers a complete visual index of these remarkable photographs, made at a critical moment in the history of the American West. Distributed for the Hall Family Foundation and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (07/25/14-01/11/15)

Best known for his modernist paintings and prints, the multitalented artist Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) maintained a deep and intensive interest in photography throughout his career, using the camera as a tool of both documentary and artistic expression. This exquisitely produced publication provides a fresh, comprehensive look at Crawford's photographs from 1938 through the mid-1970s, including both well-known works and previously unpublished images. Some of his photographic images served as the basis for paintings and prints, but many more were made for their own sake as photographs, capturing a wide variety of subjects, from pristine industrial forms to the vibrant street life and musical culture of New Orleans. This volume locates Crawford's photographic production in the context of his overall artistic career and within the creative currents of his time, enhancing our understanding of Crawford as an artist and serving as the best and most up-to-date study of his photographs. Distributed for The Hall Family Foundation in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (10/26/18-04/07/19)