Mathew Brady and the image of history / Mary Panzer ; with an essay by Jeana K. Foley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Panzer, Mary, author.

Contributor:

Foley, Jeana Kae, writer of supplementary textual content.

National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution)

Fogg Art Museum.

International Center of Photography.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brady, Mathew B., approximately 1823-1896--Exhibitions.

Brady, Mathew B.

Photographers--United States--Biography--Exhibitions.

Photographers.

Portrait photography--United States--History--Exhibitions.

Portrait photography.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Photography--Exhibitions.

United States.

Brady, Mathew B., approximately 1823-1896.

Photography.

Brady, Mathew B--Exhibitions.

Portrait photography--United States--Exhibitions.

Photographers--United States--Exhibitions.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogues.

Exhibition catalogs.

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 232 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery, [1997]

Summary:

In Mathew Brady and the Image of History, Mary Panzer describes how Brady used the documentary medium of photography to portray a stable, purposeful, patriotic republic during the decades when the national identity was fragmenting. She charts the most productive years of Brady's career, from his emergence in 1844 as a daguerreotypist in New York to his bankruptcy in Washington, D.C., in 1872. Intent on creating a "national portrait gallery" of famous leaders that would connect such luminaries as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay with the Civil War leaders who succeeded them - and with future generations - Brady assiduously courted his subjects, enhancing their reputations along with his own.

Taking advantage of emerging photographic paper printing techniques to create large-format, classically posed portraits, Brady also collaborated with painters such as G.P.A. Healy and Alonzo Chappel, who used his photographs to complete their own heroically scaled images. Contending that Brady's photographs contribute to an ongoing national interest in the Civil War, Panzer concludes that they continue to function as Brady hoped they would, constructing an idealized history in which fact and memory are intertwined.

Contents:

Chronology of Mathew Brady's life

Introduction

A brief biography

"A perfect kaleidoscope" : New York City

The making of a daguerreotypist

Building a national gallery

Photography and American art at midcentury

Washington and the war years

History as image, photography as art

Notes. A gallery of images ; Plate captions and subject biographies

Recollection the past : a collection ; Chronicle of Mathew Brady's photographs / Jeana K. Foley

Appendix : Contemporary descriptions of Mathew Brady.

Notes:

An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Sept. 26, 1997-Jan. 4, 1998; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Jan. 22-April 15, 1998;; International Center of Photography, Midtown New York City, May 1-July 19, 1998.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Panzer, Mary. Mathew Brady and the image of history.

ISBN:

1560987936

9781560987932

1588341437

9781588341433

OCLC:

36485937