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Wednesday, July 2, 2025 |
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National Portrait Gallery unveils grand-scale portraits from photography's dawn |
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Unidentified woman. Unidentified Artist, Whole-plate tintype, c. 1865. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
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WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery is presenting From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photographys Formative Years June 20 through June 7, 2026. Drawing from the museums extensive early photography collection, this exhibition traces the evolution of the grand- scale, whole-plate portrait format from the high-end daguerreotype and mid-range ambrotype to the more affordable tintype. The exhibition is curated by Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard.
Photographers seeking customers during the mediums early years, from 1840 to 1860, often urged the public to Secure the shadow ere the substance fade. Hinting at lifes fragility, this tagline underscored photographys ability to capture a fleeting likeness and preserve it for posterity. Portraits in the impressive whole-plate format measuring 8 1/2 by 6 1/2 incheswere among the premier offerings of the nations leading photographic studios.
This exhibition marks the first time these whole-plate daguerreotype, ambrotype and tintype portraits will be shown together at the Portrait Gallery, Shumard said.
Examples of whole plates in each of these mediums illustrate how the format evolved as new photographic processes were introduced. Featured works include daguerreotypes representing U.S. Senators Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, an ambrotype portrait of American landscape artist John Frederick Kensett and a tintype likeness of an unidentified African American woman. Also included are original advertisements issued by photographers Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, and Mathew B. Brady to promote their respective businesses. The exhibition is being presented in the Early Photography Alcove on the museums first floor.
The National Portrait Gallery is also displaying Meserve Collection Highlights: Modern Prints from Mathew Bradys Portrait Negatives. The museums vast collection of Civil War-era portrait negatives is represented in this exhibition through nine modern prints from Mathew Bradys original photographic negatives. Portraits of Ulysses Grant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Abraham Lincoln and Emma, Queen of Hawaii are featured, along with an original, glass-plate negative and one of Bradys wooden storage boxes. In 1981, the National Portrait Gallery acquired more than 5,400 Brady studio negatives.
Originally assembled as part of a larger collection by amateur historian Frederick Hill Meserve, they offer an extraordinary pictorial index of the prominent figures of the Civil War era. The exhibition will be on view through May 14, 2028.
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