Tufa Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada
Medium
Photography-Photoprint
Classification
Photography-Photoprint
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Accession Number
1994.91.142
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Tufa Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada** (1867) captures the dramatic geology of Nevada's Pyramid Lake through the lens of Timothy H. O'Sullivan, a pioneering photographer known for his stark, monumental images of the American West. Taken during expeditions like the Geological Survey of the 40th Parallel, O'Sullivan's work documented uncharted landscapes amid post-Civil War expansion, blending scientific precision with artistic vision. This photoprint showcases the towering tufa domes—calcium carbonate rock formations rising from the lake's shores—evoking the raw power of nature in a vast, arid ex...
About the Artist
Timothy H. O'Sullivan · 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...