Alexander Gardner
1863-1869 (ca)
[William R. Pywell, sitting and unidentified man, standing]

Carte de visite
DeGolyer Library, South Methodist University - SMU
Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs, Call Number: Ag2008.0005
 
Pictured standing is William Redish Pywell (1843-1887). The two women sitting are possibly his sisters, Laura Virginia Pywell O'Sullivan, middle and Jane E. Pywell, left. (Source: 1850 and 1860 United States Federal Census) Pywell worked for Mathew Brady and later Alexander Gardner as a photographer during the Civil War. He spent some time in Austin, Texas ca. 1867 where he was the partner of F. A. Sterzing in the gallery of Pywell & Sterzing. It seems he was acquainted with William J. Oliphant whom he likely met in Washington, D.C. when Oliphant studied photography in Alexander Gardner's studio during the late 1860s. Pywell went on to be the official photographer of the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873. During 1874-1875 he was a photographer on the Navy's Transit of Venus Expedition in Tasmania. Pywell had a studio in Louisiana during the late 1870s-1880s. His sister, Laura Virginia Pywell (1850-1881), was married to the noted photographer Timothy O'Sullivan (1840-1882). (Source: David Haynes, Catching Shadows: A Directory of Nineteenth-Century Texas Photographers (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1993), pp. 89; See also: The Pywell Collection of Prints and Textual Materials Relating to Pywell Family, Associates, and Geological Survey Activities, 1976 - ca. 1981, National Archives, http://research.archives.gov/description/559328)
 
LL/95627