Sale 2489 - Artists & Amateurs: Photographs & Photobooks, October 18, 2018

CarletonWatkins (1829-1916) definedAmerican landscape photography. Drawn fromOneonta, NewYork to theWest coast by the opportunities associated with the California Gold Rush, his early career began in the 1850s amidst the backdrop of the expanding city of San Francisco. Initially, hisphotographypracticewassupportedbyprivatecommissions, including mining companies and financiers who hired Watkins to providephotographicevidencetoaid incourtroomdisputes. Throughout his business connections, Watkins gained inside access to San Francisco business mogul’s impressive home views. Many of the sprawling cityscapes seen in his stereo views were taken from the rooftops of San Francisco homes owned by men such as Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington. In 1861, Watkins traveled to Yosemite Valley where he created thirty mammoth-plate and 100 stereo views of the astonishing natural landscape. The plates became one of the first publicly issued set of mammoth prints ever published, and Watkins quickly acquired fame across the nation. Included in the widely distributed Yosemite Portfolio was the mammoth plate Cascade, Nevada Falls, which depicts an eastern view above the Nevada Fall before the river cascades down the dramatic overhang. The awe-inspiring natural beauty of the Yosemite Valley, including the surrounding cliffs that soared 3,000 feet high, fascinated Americans, especially those on the east coast. President Lincoln declared the land federally protected based on Watkins’ mammoth-plate photographs. Throughout Watkins’ career, he extensively photographed California, the Pacific Northwest, and the construction of railroads fromSouthern California through Utah. Watkins’ ability to clearly capture unencum­ bered and newly developing lands in the West was remarkable given the cumbersome equipment available to nineteenth-century photo­ graphers.Watkins’ technicalmasteryandcompositional sophistication reflects an artistic sensibility that distinguishes him from his contemporaries. CARLETON E. WATKINS (1829-1916)