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.
Smithsonian acquires stellar early American photography collection
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.