Master Photographers’ Work Of 1840–1940 Highlighted At Metropolitan Museum

New York City

:"Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940," an exhibition on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through September 1, tells the story of photography's first 100 years through the work of 13 key figures who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of the medium — Gustave Le Gray, Carleton Watkins, Roger Fenton, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, Edouard Baldus, Walker Evans, Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassaï.

The exhibition presents 10 to 12 iconic works by each of these influential artists to convey a broad sense of their contributions to photography. Many of the works displayed in "Framing a Century" are drawn from the Gilman Paper Company collection, which was acquired by the museum in 2005.

"Framing a Century" begins with beautifully preserved works by three photographers of architecture and landscape: the Englishman Roger Fenton (1819–1869), Carleton Watkins (1829–1916), the consummate photographer of the American West during the 1860s and 1870s; and the Frenchman Gustave Le Gray (1820–1884), who is now represented in the Met's collection by more than 40 photographs spanning his entire career.

The next section includes rare photographs by the inventor of paper photography, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), whose work in the Metropolitan ranges from some of the first photographs ever made, predating the announcement of photography, through iconic images that were included in Talbot's photographically illustrated book The Pencil of Nature , to examples of the photogravure process that consumed the latter part of his life.

Also in the second room of the exhibition are works by two masters of portraiture, Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820–1910) in France and Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) in England. Nadar, whose keen observation of physiognomy and personality was honed as a caricaturist, was at his best when photographing his literary, artistic and left-wing political friends. The subjects of Cameron's works in the exhibition include her friends — the eminent scientist Sir John Herschel and poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson — as well as family members, neighbors and staff pressed into service as models in Cameron's biblical and literary tableaux.

The history, landscape and streets of Paris and the French countryside are explored in works on view by Edouard Baldus (1813–1889), whose images include historic monuments, the natural landscape and the achievements of modern engineers; Charles Marville (1816–1879), best known for photographs commissioned by Napoleon III's master urban planner, Baron Hausmann; and Eugène Atget (1857–1927), an artist who spent three decades documenting the look and feel of Paris and the surrounding region.

The exhibition concludes with the work of four artists who were significant in transforming photography into a modern visual language. Photographs by Man Ray (1890–1976), for example, capture the broad creative scope of his work in the 1920s and 1930s, including portraits of fellow artists Marcel Duchamp and Jean Cocteau; documentation of his own ephemeral sculptures; and photographs that reveal his dynamic experimentation with the plasticity of the medium through solarization, photograms, negative prints and film. Also included is work by pioneering and influential photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908– 2004); Brassaï (1899–1984), the chronicler of Paris by night; and Walker Evans (1903–1975), best known for his Depression-era photographs in the American South.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is at 1000 Fifth Avenue, For information, 212-535-7710 or www.metmuseum.org.