Photo History I - Portraiture - Photography - Research Guides at Columbia College Chicago Library

Introduction | Photo History I | Portraiture

This guide is designed to assist students enrolled in Photo History I - Nineteenth Century Portrait Photography with their research.

Internet Resources

America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839-1862 | Library of Congress
These daguerreotype images show portraits of politicians and activists (including Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas), laborers, early views of the U.S. Capitol, and African Americans who became leaders in Liberia.
The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–60 | Metropolitan Museum of Art
+ Related Essays are available to explore by opening the tab on the right side of this essay.
Digital Pubic Library of America | The Portraiture
Explore the history of one of the most common types of photographs: the portrait. From formal studio shots to simple snapshots, the best portraits capture more than just a likeness. Discover how they mark a moment in time, create drama, evoke sympathy, inspire whimsy, and reflect the spirit and character of humanity.
Profiling Portraits: Occupational Portraits of the 19th Century | Library of Congress
The basic goal of a portrait is to capture the likeness of the subject. But a portrait can offer a lot more information than simply the shape of a face. As with all visual images, portraits lend themselves to further exploration. Why was the portrait made? What does it tell the viewer about the subject beyond their appearance? Did the format affect the result? With these influences and questions in mind, explore portraits in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
Public Faces: Photography as Social in the 19th Century | International Center of Photography
Learn how many of the traits we associate with our selfies were also present in the most popular photographic format of the 1860s, the carte de visite.
Photomuse | Antique Prints Collection
PhotoMuse is India's first public museum dedicated to the art, history and science of photography. Explore historical collections and exhibits of photographic portraiture and artifacts.
7 Early Women Photographers | Google Arts & Culture
Photography captures a point of view, freezing one person's perspective in time forever. As Berenice Abbott said, "photography helps people to see." Here are a few of the unseen pioneering women behind the camera.
Logwood Family Photo Album | Truth In Photography | Understanding Family
What happens to family photographs when they are separated from the family they belong to? Discovering the familial connections is revealing.

Articles

Gordon Parks: The Man Who Made Art His Weapon | One Club For Creativity
The story of legendary photographer Gordon Parks.
“Art of the Future”: Julia Margaret Cameron's Poetry, Photography, and Pre-Raphaelitism | Victorian Studies
Defying earlier conventions of still, dull portraiture, mid-century Victorian photographers turned the medium into an art form. While recent scholarship draws parallels between photography and painting, this essay gestures toward connections between art photography and Pre-Raphaelite poetry by examining the photographic process of Julia Margaret Cameron alongside her poem “On a Portrait” (1876).
Early Influences of Photography on Art - Photographic Effects | Journal of Art in Society
Discusses the impact that photography had on painters and the works they created.
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Citation: McCouat, P, "Early influences of photography on art", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
A Portrait on the Move: Photography, Literature, and Transatlantic Exchanges in the Nineteenth Century | Panorama: Journal of the Association of Histoirans of American Art
United States photographers were not only on the receiving end of photographic developments in Europe...they frequently sent prints and information about their corresponding processes to Europe and elsewhere through these specialized journals.
The Pose in Early Portrait Photography | Image [&] Narrative
Photographers of the early period, who were mainly coming from the painterly tradition, were attempting to shoot photographs that looked like paintings. One of the key factors in that attempt was to borrow the poses and settings of the painterly tradition. Ponders the questions...was this attempt really successful? Did the attempt of imitating the “artistic” poses of the paintings make photography a continuation of painting?
Monovisions | Black & White Photography Magazine | Vintage Articles
Features articles on vintage photography. To start off, here is a biography on the "19th Century Pioneer German Woman Photographer, Emilie Bieber" (1810-1884) who opened her own studio in Hamburg as early as 1852.
A Sensational Murder Case That Ended In A Wrongful Conviction | Smithsonian Magazine
An article that focuses on the role of photographer, journalist, and social reformer, Jacob Riis. It discusses the case of Ben Ali, believed to be the first U.S. case in which a journalist and social documentary photographer, none other than Jacob Riis, helped free an imprisoned man.
Photo Booth | Early 20th Century - A Woman's Intimate Photographic Record | The New Yorker
Between 1899 and her death, in 1962, [Lora Webb] Nichols created and collected some twenty-four thousand negatives documenting life in her small Wyoming town -- portraits, still-lifes, domestic interiors, and landscapes, all made with an unfussy, straightforward, charming and often humorous eye toward the small textures and gestures of everyday life.
'Madame d'Ora' Exhibition | Review | Wall Street Journal
Approaching Photography as a Dramaturge; Dora Kallmus, better known as Madame d'Ora, was a talented portraitist who found theatrical spectacle in many of her subjects. (Museum Exhibition below)
Madame d'Ora Exhibition | PHOTOGRAPHS & VIDEO | Neue Gallerie (New York)
Dora Kallmus (1881–1963), better known as Madame d’Ora, was an unusual woman for her time with a spectacular career as one of the leading photographic portraitists of the early 20th century. This exhibition is the largest museum retrospective on the Austrian photographer to date in the United States. VIDEO: Watch a closed-captioned 5 minute video with Dr. Monika Faber, curator of the exhibition featured near the bottom of the page on the right side.
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For the publication accompanying this exhibition (See Books below)

Books

Face Time: A History of the Photographic Portrait

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 778.9209 P964f

The Printed Picture

Library location: 3rd floor

Call number: 686.209 B474p

Flash! Photography, Writing, and Suprising Illumination

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.9 F624f

Photography and Other Media in the Nineteenth Century

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.9 P575L

The Beautiful and the Damned: The Creation of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Photography

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.9034 H219b

To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.973 Z41b

Madame D'Ora

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 779.092 O63f

Acting Out: Cabinet Cards and the Making of Modern Photography

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.74 A188r

The Cromer Collection of Nineteenth-Century French Photography

Library location: 4th floor

Call number: 770.944 G347c

E-Books

Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography

Available online

Local Portraiture: Through the Lens of the 19th-Century Iranian Photographers

Available online

The Gender of Photography: How Masculine and Feminine Values Shaped the History of Nineteenth-Century Photography

Available online

Photography and the Arts: Essays on 19th Century Practices and Debates

Available online

Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography

Available online

The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship

Available online

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Text

Designed to complement the Library of Congress photographic images site, this Northwestern University site provides the 5,000 page full text of Curtis's 20 volume work. More information on Edward S. Curtis: Coming To Light (Fifth Floor Stacks 973.0497 C978m)

Virtual Photography Exhibition | Google Arts & Culture | ★ ★ ★ Making, Not Taking: Portrait Photography in the 19th Century ★ ★ ★

MAKING, NOT TAKING: PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE 19TH CENTURY was an exhibition running from February 7 until December 13, 2020 at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Learn More: https://www.wellesley.edu/davismuseum/whats-on/upcoming/node/171791

PART ONE: 19th Century Materials
The process of early photography involved a great deal of time, labor, and costly materials. Explores the materiality, the craft, and the event of photography in its earliest iterations. Part 1 of 3, this virtual version of the exhibition focuses on 19th-century photographic materials, which shaped the public and private function of portraits.
PART TWO: A Visit to the Portrait Studio
The early photography studio was much more than a place to have one’s portrait made—it was an entire occasion. Part 2 of 3, this virtual version of the exhibition focuses on the many decisions made by camera operators and their sitters to create a successful portrait.
PART THREE: Studios Around The Globe
Photography studios sprung up around the globe throughout the 19th century, particularly in the wake of widespread European and American colonialism and imperialism. Part 3 of 3, this virtual version of the exhibition focuses on case studies from Japan, Mexico, Egypt, and the United States to explore how the theatrical elements of the early portrait studio (with its props, backdrops, and costumes) were used to created generalized image “types” of people from around the world.