In our era of screens and proliferous imagery, it strains the imagination to comprehend a time before photography. Two centuries ago, an inventor named Nicéphore Niépce took the very first picture of his courtyard in France by fitting a pewter plate into a camera obscura. A few years later, a professional scene painter named Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre conceived of the aptly named daguerreotype, in which the image could be permanently fixed. He and Niépce both sold their technologies to the French government, which then published a how-to guide and facilitated the global spread of the process. In 1939, the first daguerrotypes were created in the U.S.
As they say, the rest is history. Except, we often only see a part of the whole story. Because the technology was expensive, and therefore having your photograph taken (let alone owning the equipment) was costly, the visual record of the 19th century in this medium is heavily skewed toward affluent, white individuals and families who could afford it. Due to the long exposure time required to capture the images, we also don’t see candid shots, as carefully posed scenes were required for clarity and fidelity.
Photography was invented decades before the Civil War and the end of slavery in the U.S., yet so rarely do we glimpse real faces that “illuminate the complexities of race, freedom, and agency before, during, and after the Civil War,” says the National Gallery of Art, which presents Remember Me: Picturing African Americans in Early Photography later this year. The exhibition brings forward dozens of images taken of and by Black Americans, showcasing a wide variety of lived experiences in one place.
Fashion, family, and social status are on full display in a range of gelatin silver prints, daguerrotypes, tintypes, and ambrotypes, some of which are colorized. Because many of the earliest formats were very fragile, they were often displayed in ornate folding cases. Several of these will be included with their images, plus cabinet cards and portraits by pioneering Black artists like James Van Der Zee, who ran a prominent studio in Harlem in the early 20th century.
The exhibition will highlight around 70 pieces in the museum’s collection that center self-expression and the entrepreneurial spirit of African American individuals. Remember Me is slated to open on November 7 and will continue through March 14 in Washington, D.C. Learn more and plan your visit on the museum’s website.
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