On view through Sept.14, in the Montclair Art Museum’s Judy and Josh Weston Exhibition Gallery, the exhibition features 60 19th-century photographic landscapes by photographers such as Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, and William Henry Jackson — all drawn from George Eastman House’s collection of prints and stereographs of 19th-century American landscapes. These photographs are visually complemented by paintings by George Inness and Thomas Moran from the Montclair Art Museum’s collection.

The American land, expansive and spectacular, has been a central force in shaping American culture. From "The Leatherstocking Tales" of James Fenimore Cooper to the majestic landscapes of Ansel Adams, it has inspired the creativity of authors and artists and captured our collective imagination.

The photographers who labored to create these images — for government-sponsored geological and geographical surveys, for the railroad companies, and for the tourist trade — were entrepreneurs and adventurers. One had to have a sense of adventure to sustain months of travel, camping, and sometimes hostile interactions with native peoples. Their primary purpose was to document the land for their employers. Many, including Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, John Moran, Carlton E. Watkins, William H. Rau, and William Bell, accomplished their commissions in a truly aesthetic way. Today, their images are appreciated for their artistic rendering as well as for their topographical depiction of known and unknown places.

Organized by Gail Stravitsky and Twig Johnson for its presentation at the Montclair Art Museum, the exhibition has been augmented by photographic equipment of the era and work from the Museum’s permanent collection, including photographs by William Henry Jackson, Frank A. Rhinehart, Andrew Russell and Fredric Vreeland. Paintings by Thomas Moran and George Inness bring to light the common subjects and relationships between the painters and photographers of that time. Works by American Indian artists represent the presence of Native American peoples long before the explorations of the American West and other areas depicted in the photographs on view.

"The Montclair Art Museum was approached by the George Eastman House with information on this special traveling exhibition," stated Gail Stravitsky, chief curator at MAM. "Given our own small collection of 19th century photographs and much larger collection of historical paintings, we felt that the show was a natural fit for the Museum."

george eastman museum history

The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film combines the world’s leading collections of photography and film with the stately pleasures of the landmark Colonial Revival mansion and gardens that George Eastman (1854-1902) called home from 1905 to 1932, in Rochester, N.Y. Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Co., is heralded as the father of modern photography, and the inventor of motion picture film.

Eastman House, the world’s oldest photography museum, and one of the world’s oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949. World-renowned for its photographic and motion picture archives, the Museum is also a leader in film preservation and photographic conservation, educating the top archivists and conservators from around the world. After his death in 1932, Eastman left his house to the University of Rochester.

By 1984, the Museum’s holdings were considered among the world’s finest. Entire archives, corporate collections, and artists’ lifetime portfolios, as well as a staggering assemblage of rare motion pictures, had been donated to Eastman House. However, with the collections growing at such a rapid pace, the Museum increasingly suffered from its own success. With an increasing number of materials to store, protect and study, space and financing became critical.

Between 1985 and 1988, more than $30 million was raised for capital improvement and collections care, which provided for a state-of-the-arts archives building, along with a study center and exhibition galleries. The new facility opened to the public in January of 1989, and now houses more than 400,000 photographs and negatives, 23,000 films and more than 5 million film stills, 43,000 publications, and more than 25,000 pieces of technology.

eastman’s career

When his father died suddenly in 1860, leaving his family with few financial resources, Eastman left school at age 14, to support his mother and two older sisters. At age 23, he was encouraged by a colleague to take a camera on an upcoming vacation to Santa Domingo. Eastman bought a photographic outfit, and although he never made the journey, became engrossed in photography.

The weight, awkwardness and cost of a photographic outfit soon led Eastman to experiment on improvements. Unhappy with the excessive work to take and develop photography, he searched for a simpler way to develop negatives. He spent three years in his mother’s kitchen experimenting with gelatin emulsions. By 1880, he had invented and patented a dry-plate coating machine.

Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Co. in 1892, an organization that revolutionized photography through simplification, and introduced the small, easy-to-use Kodak camera in 1888, and later, in 1900, the "Brownie" camera, which could be used by people of all ages. The company also invented a flexible film that helped launch the motion picture industry.

In addition to being a successful businessman, Eastman was also a very generous man, and during his life donated more than $100 million to educational and arts institutions, public parks, hospitals, dental clinics and charitable organizations around the world.

In the early 1930s,he was diagnosed with a irreversible spinal disease, and on March 14, 1932, ended his own life. In a note to friends¸ Eastman wrote: "My work is done. Why wait?"

And although he believed his work was done, Eastman’s company continued to expand. Today¸ Eastman Kodak is one of the world’s largest and most successful film manufacturers.

And photography lovers, can view these photographic landscapes taken through the lens of early cameras, through Sept. 14 at the Montclair Art Museum.