More Photos
By GEORGE KENDALL WARREN
page 1 page 2
George Kendall Warren , American,
1824-1884
Warren began making daguerreotypes in 1852 in Lowell, MA. He moved to
Cambridgeport, MA, across the river from Boston, in 1858 or 60. He began
making photographs for college "class books" or yearbooks in 1858,
probably starting with Dartmouth. From 1858 till his death in 1884 he
traveled the north east making photographs at Harvard, Williams, Brown, Weslyan,
Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, Dartmouth, Union, and West Point. He was selected
by the senior class at these schools year after year because of the high
quality and strength of his portraits. At the same time he photographed
the campus and surrounding area of each school. The quality of his printing
is remarkable not only in the beautiful tonal range, but also the number of his
prints that have survived without fading.
His body of northeastern landscape photography is the largest
and perhaps the most important of the late 1850s and 1860s. No other
early photographer working with a large format camera has painted the
eastern landscape like Warren. He had a sharp eye for composition and
developed some compositional styles new to American painting and photography.
He favored early morning or late afternoon winter light which emphasized the
light and shadows of trees. Many compositions include a bold central
form leading away from the camera, like a path, road, tree or lamppost. He
may have been aware of the luminist and Hudson River painters of his day. His
view of East Rock, New Haven, Connecticut, is from an almost identical perspective
as Frederick Church's famous painting of the same subject.
Warren's body of work is also unusual for including portraits
of workers in working clothes. Photographs of African Americans and
workers from this period are rare in early American photographs.
Warren's portraiture was also well respected. Most
of the country's best schools hired him year after because of the strength
of his portraits. His studio also attracted President Franklin Pierce and
most of the prominent actors, actresses, Civil War Generals and assorted celebrities
that lived in Boston or visited. Warren died in an accident with a train
in Medford, Ma. 1884.
References
2000 Acquisitions: The Hallmark Art Collection, The Hallmark Photographic
Collection. Keith F. Davis. 2000. Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri.
Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years. Susan Faxon. 1996. Addison Gallery,
Andover.
The American Daguerreotype. Floyd Rinhart, Marion Rinhart. 1981. The University
of Georgia Press.
American Photographs: The First Century. Merry A. Foresta. 1997. Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Citizens In Conflict: Prints and Photographs of the American Civil War. Sally
Pierce, Temple D. Smith. 1981. The Boston Athenaeum.
Common Ground: Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art. Judy Norrell. 2004.
Merrell, New York.
Craig's Daguerreian Registry: Volume 1, The Overview. John S. Craig.
1994. John S. Craig.
Craig's Daguerreian Registry: Volume 3, Pioneers and Progress--MacDonald
to Zuky. John S. Craig. 1996. John S. Craig.
A Curious and Ingenious Art: Reflections on Daguerreotypes at Harvard. Melissa
Banta. 2000. Harvard University Press & University of Iowa Press.
History of Photography Spring 2000. Mike Weaver, Anne Hammond. 2000. Taylor & Francis,
London.
Photography in America: The Formative Years 1839-1900, A Documentary History. William Welling. . Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
Photography and the American Scene. Robert Taft. 1942. The MacMillan Company.
Photography in Nineteenth-Century America. Martha A. Sandweiss, essays by Alan
Trachtenberg, Barbara McCandless, Keith F. Davis, Peter Bacon Hales, Sarah Greenough.
1991. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
|
Email us at: