How Lewis Carroll's photographs of children gave visual form to evolving ideas about childhood in the Victorian era Lewis Carroll began photographing children in the mid-nineteenth century, at a time when the young medium of photography was opening up new possibilities for visual representation and the notion of childhood itself was in transition. In this lavishly illustrated book, Diane Waggoner offers the first comprehensive account of Carroll as a photographer of modern childhood, exploring how his photographs of children gave visual form to emerging conceptions of childhood in the Victorian age. Situating Carroll's photography within the broader context of Victorian visual and social culture, Waggoner shows how he drew on images of childhood in painting and other media, and engaged with the visual language of the Victorian theater, fancy dress, and Pre-Raphaelitism. She provides the first in-depth analysis of Carroll's photographing of boys, which she examines in the context of boys' education and reveals to be a significant part of his photographic career. Waggoner draws on a wealth of rare archival material, demonstrating how Carroll established new aesthetic norms for images of girls, engaged with evolving definitions of masculinity, and pushed the idea of childhood to the limit with his use of dress and nude images. This book sheds unique light on Carroll's decades-long passion for photography, showing how his complex and haunting images of children embody conflicting definitions of childhood and are no less powerful today in their ability to challenge, fascinate, and shock us.

An illuminating look at how the Pre-Raphaelite movement was embraced by a group of vanguard American artists Bringing together insights from a distinguished group of scholars, this beautiful book analyzes the history and historiography of the American Pre-Raphaelites, and how the movement made its way from England to America. Led by Thomas Charles Farrer-an English expatriate and acolyte of the hugely influential English critic John Ruskin-the American Pre-Raphaelite artists followed Ruskin's dictum to depict nature close up and with great fidelity. Many members of the group (including Farrer, who served in the Union army during the American Civil War) were also abolitionists, and several created works with a rich political subtext. Featuring the work of artists such as Fidelia Bridges, Henry and Thomas Charles Farrer, Charles Herbert Moore, Henry Roderick Newman, and William Trost Richards, this generously illustrated volume is filled with insightful essays that explore the influence of Ruskin on the American artists, the role of watercolor and photography in their work, symbolism and veiled references to the Civil War, and much more.

An important reconsideration of landscape photography in 19th-century America, exploring crucial but neglected geographies, practitioners, and themes Although pictures of the West have dominated our perception of 19th-century American landscape photography, many photographers were working in the eastern half of the United States during that period. Their pictures, with the exception of Civil War images, have received relatively scant attention. Redressing this imbalance is East of the Mississippi, the first book to focus exclusively on the arresting eastern photographs that helped shape America's national identity. Celebrating natural wonders such as Niagara Falls and the White Mountains as well as capturing a cultural landscape fundamentally altered by industrialization, these works also documented the impact of war, promoted tourism, and played a role in an emerging environmentalism. Showcasing more than 180 photographs from 1839 to 1900 in a rich variety of media and formats-from daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, tintypes, cyanotypes, and albumen prints to stereo cards and photograph albums-this volume traces the evolution of eastern landscape photography and introduces the artists who explored this subject. Also considered are the dynamic ties with other media-for instance, between painters and photographers such as the Bierstadt and Moran brothers-and the distinctive development of landscape photography in America. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Exhibition Schedule: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (03/12/17-07/16/17) New Orleans Museum of Art (10/05/17-01/07/18)

Photography Reinvented brings together thirty-five works by eighteen critically acclaimed artists who, through innovative experimentation and visionary conceptual scope, have changed the course of contemporary photography. From the seemingly objective, straightforward style and large-scale, vibrantly colored prints of famed Dusseldorf School photographers Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer, Thomas Struth, and Thomas Ruff to works by groundbreaking contemporary artists, including Thomas Demand, Vik Muniz, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Catherine Opie, Photography Reinvented traces the aesthetic, technical, and philosophical shifts of the art form during a period of substantial change. Some of the artists, such as Sherman and Demand as well as Muniz and John Baldessari, explore the nature of photography as a medium that appropriates imagery from mass culture and other sources. Others, such as Hofer and Struth, have reassessed iconic works of art and architecture, revealing the relevance of the past in our present lives. And all of these artists have made large-scale prints that create new and strangely destabilizing experiences of space for their viewers. In an age when photography can no longer claim documentary veracity as its raison d'etre, Photography Reinvented examines the medium's redefinition, repurposing, and reimagining. Exhibition schedule: National Gallery of Art, Washington September 30, 2016-January 29, 2017