Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, Volume 1
Medium
Albumen silver prints from glass negatives
Dimensions
Image: approx. 7 × 9 in. (17.8 × 22.8 cm), each Sheet: 12 1/4 × 15 5/8 in. (31.1 × 39.7 cm) 12 3/4 × 17 3/8 × 2 in. (32.4 × 44.1 × 5.1 cm)
Classification
Albums
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.502.1 (1–50)
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, Volume ** (1863) stands as a pioneering visual chronicle of the American Civil War, compiled by Alexander Gardner and featuring stunning albumen silver prints from glass by a talented team of photographers, including Timothy H. O'S, George N. Barnard, James, John Reekie, David Knox, R. Pywell, and David B. Woodbury This hefty album, measuring about 12¾ × 17⅜ × 2 inches, roughly 50 images, each approximately 7 × 9 inches, capturing battlefields, fortifications, and the stark aftermath of conflict across the Eastern Theater. The albumen process, using egg whites to bind light-sensitive silver salts on paper, produced richly toned prints with exceptional detail—ideal for documenting the war's grim realities. Gardner, a Scottish-born innovator who broke from Mathew Brady's studio, self-published this work to showcase photography's power as a truthful medium, free from artistic embellishment. Released amid the war's final throes, it brought remote horrors into parlors nationwide. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gilman Collection, this volume revolutionized photojournalism, influencing how future generations perceive conflict. Visitors, leaf through its pages to witness history's unvarnished gaze— a testament to photography's emergence as both art and evidence. (198 words)
About the Artist
Timothy H. O'Sullivan|Alexander Gardner|George N. Barnard|James Gardner|John Reekie|David Knox|William R. Pywell|David B. Woodbury|Alexander Gardner|Alexander Gardner · 1840–present
Timothy H. O'Sullivan (c. 1840–1882) was a pioneering American photographer whose unflinching lens captured the raw devastation of the Civil War and the sublime vastness of the untamed West. Born in New York City—or possibly Ireland, with his family migrating soon after—his early life remains sparsely documented. As a teenager, he apprenticed under Mathew Brady at the famed daguerreotype studio on...