Henry Louis Gates Jr. co-curates Frederick Douglass show at Wadsworth

George Kendall Warren, ‘Frederick Douglass,’ 1879. Albumen print on Cabinet Card. The Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
George Kendall Warren, ‘Frederick Douglass,’ 1879. Albumen print on Cabinet Card. The Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
George Kendall Warren, ‘Frederick Douglass,’ 1879. Albumen print on Cabinet Card. The Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

HARTFORD, Conn. — A new exhibition exploring the reflections of Frederick Douglass on image-making, race and citizenship has opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Co-curated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, the exhibition brings together rare 19th-century daguerreotypes — on public view for the first time — with an immersive film work by contemporary artist Sir Isaac Julien that meditates on Douglass’ life and times. I Am Seen…Therefore, I Am: Isaac Julien and Frederick Douglass is on view through September 24.

Continue reading

Smithsonian acquires stellar early American photography collection

Unidentified artist, ‘Untitled (family, painted backdrop),’ undated, tintype. Smithsonian American Art Museum, the L. J. West Collection of Early American Photography, Museum purchase made possible through the Franz H. and Luisita L. Denghausen Endowment
Unidentified artist, ‘Untitled (family, painted backdrop),’ undated, tintype. Smithsonian American Art Museum, the L. J. West Collection of Early American Photography, Museum purchase made possible through the Franz H. and Luisita L. Denghausen Endowment

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) has acquired a collection of objects related to early American photography from the collector Larry J. West that transforms the museum’s photography holdings. The L.J. West Collection includes 286 objects from the 1840s to about 1925 in three groupings: works by early African American daguerreotypists James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington; early photographs of diverse portrait subjects and objects related to abolitionists, the Underground Railroad and the role of women entrepreneurs in it; and photographic jewelry that represents the bridge between miniature painting and early cased photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes.

Continue reading