Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Philp & Solomons, 1865-1866 

Two volumes, oblong folio. Washington: Philp and Solomons, 1865-66. With pictorial title pages after A.R. Ward, containing 100 albumen photographs by Gardner and others, each 6.75 x 8.75 in., mounted on larger sheets with pre-printed mounting blocks and printed captions. Each plate accompanied by a printed page describing the image. Published pebbled dark brown/black morocco, with gilt title. First edition.

Called the "first modern photo-essay" (Stapp 1991: 28), Gardner's "sketchbook" is recognized as the first published collection of Civil War photographs. Conceived by Gardner as a post-war memento, the 100 photographs represent selections from the over 3,000 negatives taken during the Civil War by himself and associates. Unlike Brady, Gardner carefully credits each of the original photographers who took the negative: George Barnard, Timothy O'Sullivan, William R. Pywell, W. Morris Smith, David Knox, and D.B. Woodbury. As Stapp notes, Gardner viewed the text and photographs to function as an extended essay comprising images and explanatory text that worked together organically (ibid: 28). The Sketch Book is organized chronologically, and covers the war in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, with the central event the battle of Gettysburg.

Seminal photographs from this conflict include A Harvest of Death; Field Where General Reynolds Fell; Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter; and Sharpshooter's Last Sleep. Exhibited in New York shortly after the battle, these images dramatically brought home the carnage of the battle, and shocked American's who previously had an abstract view of the War.

It has been estimated that no more than 200 copies of the Sketch Book were produced, and this example comes from the Library of American painter, George P.A. Healy (1813-1894), who is considered one of the most successful portraitists of the 19th Century. In addition to painting portraits of all of the U.S. Presidents, from John Quincy Adams to U.S. Grant, Healy also produced paintings of eminent national and international figures such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Henry Seward, Louis Philippe, and Marshal Soult (See also Lot 197). A copy of G.P.A. Healy, American Artist, An Intimate Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century, by Marie De Mare (David McKay Company, Inc., 1954) accompanies the two-volume work. 

 

Provenance: From the Library of Artist, G.P.A. Healy