Video Description:
Picturing the West: Masterworks of American Landscape Photography
On Exhibit January 27 – May 5, 2024 at the Longmont Library
Explore the richness and diversity of 19th-century American Western landscapes in our exhibition, “Picturing the West: Masterworks of American Landscape Photography.” This carefully-curated collection features original mammoth-plate photographs by iconic figures like Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and Eadweard Muybridge, alongside a companion exhibit of rarely seen works by female photographers and photographers of color from the same era. Together, these diverse voices present a more complete and nuanced vision of the American West, capturing its untamed beauty and complexity.
The exhibit offers multiple layers for engagement and education. It serves as a visual chronicle of America’s Era of Exploration, a platform for discussing the history of the American West, and a celebration of the artists—both well-known and overlooked—who helped shape the American public’s perception of the Western frontier.
The exhibition also includes period cameras from our historic collection and on loan from other museums’ collections like those used by these innovative artists, offering a tangible connection to the era and craft.
All works are from the collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. This exhibition was organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.
In the Portal Gallery
Our Portal Gallery, adjacent to the feature gallery, offers mini-exhibits that complement the main show. This season, you’ll find the work of local photographer Geneva Helen Gettman (April 11, 1913 – December 23, 1992) in this hallway space. The gallery showcases 34 of the 508 film slides donated to the Longmont Museum’s collection in 2003 by Gettman’s brother, Glenn Keller. The photographs featured, taken between 1956 – 1963, present an intimate perspective on her everyday life by capturing family, friends, pets, livestock, agricultural landscapes and the mountains in a visual love letter that is authentically Colorado.
Learn more at https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/museum/exhibitions/picturing-the-west