{
"data": {
"id": 156527,
"accession_number": "1992.238",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "East Humboldt Mountains, Utah, 1868. Timothy H. O'Sullivan (American, 1840\u20131882). Albumen print from wet collodion negative; image: 19.7 x 27 cm (7 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.); matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, James Parmelee Fund, 1992.238",
"current_location": null,
"title": "East Humboldt Mountains, Utah",
"creation_date": "1868",
"creation_date_earliest": 1868,
"creation_date_latest": 1868,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "albumen print from wet collodion negative",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Photography",
"collection": "PH - American 19th Century",
"type": "Photograph",
"measurements": "Image: 19.7 x 27 cm (7 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"image": {
"height": 0.197,
"height_inch": 7,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.27,
"width_inch": 10,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.625
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.406,
"height_inch": 16,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.508,
"width_inch": 20,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Written on negative: \"101\"; in pencil on recto: \"7.5\"; in black ink on verso: \"101\"; \"H-7\";",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311552,
"title": "Selected Acquisitions",
"description": "Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1993-02-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 186948,
"title": "Pioneers of Landscape Photography from the Museum's Collection",
"description": "Pioneers of Landscape Photography from the Museum's Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 12, 2000-January 3, 2001).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 194095,
"title": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007); Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, PA (October 3, 2009-January 3, 2010).",
"opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA, January 28 - March 15, 1992: \"Selected Acquisitions,\" CMA Bulletin, 80 (February 1993), p. 69, no. 123.",
"opening_date": "1992-01-28T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA, January 14 - March 27, 1994: \"Land of Sky and Water: 19th Century Photographs of the American West,\" no exhibition catalogue.",
"opening_date": "1994-01-14T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; August 12, 2000 - January 3, 2001. \"Pioneers of Landscape Photography from the Museum's Collection.\"",
"opening_date": "2000-08-12T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07) and Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittburgh, PA (10/3/2009 - 1/3/2010); \"Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art\", no exhibition catalogue.",
"opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich, CT",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Private Collection, CT",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "December 7, 1992",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "By nature and by experience gained during the Civil War, O\u2019Sullivan was ideally suited for the physical and creative demands required of the official photographer for the geological exploration of the fortieth parallel, led by the enterprising Yale geologist Clarence King. The goal of the expedition was to survey the geological structure and natural resources of a swath of territory 100 miles wide, from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains across the Great Basin to the Rocky Mountains. While on the expedition in 1867\u201369 and 1872, O\u2019Sullivan simultaneously pursued his own interest in perfecting a balanced, aesthetic style of landscape photography while providing a faithful record of the natural terrain. As typified in this print, he positioned the camera at a distance parallel to the majestic scenery, presenting a shallow, flattened depiction of space. The image describes in sharp detail the sheer beauty and rugged scale of this Western landscape.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60781009"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1992.238-east-humboldt-mounta"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1992.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38\u201379.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 69",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 263",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.238",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1992.238/1992.238_web.jpg",
"width": "945",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "639746",
"filename": "1992.238_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1992.238/1992.238_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
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"filename": "1992.238_print.jpg"
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"full": {
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},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "James Parmelee Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 156527,
"creators": [
{
"id": 757,
"description": "Timothy H. O'Sullivan (American, 1840\u20131882)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Timothy H. O'Sullivan American, b. Ireland?, 1840-1882\r\n\r\nAn important photographer of the American Civil War, Timothy O'Sullivan worked first for Mathew Brady, then Alexander Gardner in their Washington, D.C., studios, producing some of the war's best known images. The son of Irish immigrants, whether O'Sullivan was born in New York or Ireland remains unresolved. His photographs appear in Gardner's classic volumes, Photographic Incidents of the War (1863) and Photographic Sketchbook of the War (1866).\r\n\tAfter the war's end, O'Sullivan became a photographer for government land surveys, working from 1867-69 for Clarence King's expedition along the 40th parallel in Utah, Nevada, and California. In 1870 he was photographer for Thomas O. Selfridge's survey of the Isthmus of Darien to determine the path of the Panama Canal. That same year he was hired by Lieutenant George M. Wheeler to accompany his military surveys of the land west of the 100th meridian and expeditions to California, Nevada, and Arizona. O'Sullivan returned to work for King in 1872 before joining Wheeler again in 1873. Briefly a partner in the Washington photographic firm of Armstrong and Company, he left in 1880 to become chief photographer for the U.S. Treasury, replacing his friend and colleague Lewis Emory Walker.\r\n\tThroughout his work, O'Sullivan employed a spare, restrained style that appeals to the modern eye. It is perhaps significant that he remained in the employ of the government on projects in which objectivity was paramount. By contrast, works by his peers often seem influenced by the romanticism implicit in the enterprises, mining, development, and the building of railroads, that they were hired to record. T.W.F.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1840",
"death_year": "1882",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1992-12-07T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1868,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1868",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 08:08:14.026000"
}
}