A History of Photography at the University of Notre Dame: Nineteenth Century

This is a first-rate history of photography. As with his previous publication (2019), A History of Photography at the University of Notre Dame: Twentieth Century, author and curator David Acton uses the extraordinary and wide-ranging collection held by the Snite Museum to bring to life 100 photographs which encompass the 19th century. He tracks the history, artistic concepts, and technical advances of photography, including the pioneering work of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), Alphonse Louis Poitevin (1819-1892), Frederic Flacheron (1813-1883), Roger Fenton (1819-1869), Desire Chanay (1828-1915), Felice Beato (1832-1909), Mathew B. Brady (1822-1896), Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815-1879), William Bell (1830-1910), Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850-1913), and Jacob Riis (1849-1914). The volume provides a striking pictorial history, with specialty areas including Mathew Brady’s famous photographs of the Civil War and the exploration of the American West by photographers including Eadweard Muybridge and Charles Savage. Acton provides historical context, brief biographies, and a glossary of photographic terms. The Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame is considered to be one of the finest university art museums in America. Its permanent collection of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century photography comprises 10,000-plus pieces.

David Acton is Milly and Fritz Kaeser curator of the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame.