| | Earliest War Photographs Images selected by
Alan Griffiths
This reference set brings together some of the widely scattered examples that are referred to when the earliest war photography is mentioned.
There is little agreement as to what constitutes the first war photograph - is it the first person in military uniform, the first images of a group parading to war, the first scene of the logistics of war, the first photographs taken in the vicinity of where a war had occurred, the first battlefield scene or the first casualties? The difficulty also arises as to what war is and do civil conflicts, revolts and popular uprisings such as the Hungarian Revolution (1848) of Lajos Kossuth or the barricades in Paris (1848) photographed by M. Thibault qualify?
This exhibition has gaps:
1. Any surviving images of the Hungarian Revolution (1848).
2. The works of Bengal Army Surgeon John McCosh who served with the Bengal Artillery during the Second Sikh War (1848-49) and the Second Burma War (1852-53). Albums of this work are held at the National Army Museum (London, England).
3. Battlefield photographs taken by Carol Szathmari in 1854 during the Danubian campaign of the Crimean War. There is a good selection of these held within the Royal Collections (Windsor Castle, England).
The intention here is to add missing examples as we proceed and I'd be pleased to hear your suggestions for improvement so we can expand this into a useful resource for the community - alan@luminous-lint.com Enter
Acknowledgements: Amon Carter Museum, Archives of Modern Conflict OR National Gallery of Canada, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Bassenge Photography Auctions, Biblioteca di storia moderna e contemporanea, British Library, Brown University Library - Special Collections, Civico Archivio Fotografico, Comune di Gaeta, Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Google Books, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, J. Paul Getty Museum, Jeffrey Kraus Antique Photographics, Lee Gallery, Library of the Romanian Academy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée Carnavalet, Musée Condé, National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Private collection of Dr. Adrian-Silvan Ionescu, Private collection of John Hannavy, Rijksmuseum, Swann Galleries - New York, Victoria and Albert Museum, Wellcome Collection, Yale University - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. |
| |