Episode 19: Carleton Watkins Detective
Cartleton Watkins is considered by many to be the foremost 19th century photographer of the American West. How do we rate Watkins prints when they come through the Sotheby’s Photographs department? How do we judge what is a “good” and “bad” print, and what are the metrics that we use to decide?
I consider technical skill, composition, and condition. Put all of those together and you have something like this incredible print that not only looks like it was made yesterday, but is a beautiful composition that keeps your eye moving throughout the landscape and has stunning detail.
Yosemite Falls (River View), 1861, Albumen print from wet-collodion negative, Private Collection, Montecito, California
When Carleton returned from his first trip to Yosemite in 1861, he had thirty mammoth plate photographs and one hundred stereoview negatives.
Stereo view of Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite
Becker Stereograph Viewer, patented 1866, The Art Museum, Princeton University, Gift of Henry-Russell Hitchcock
After his life’s work was lost to creditors, he set out to create his “New Series.” On the left is El Capitan from circa 1866, while on the right is the same subject 1878-81. This print sold at Sotheby’s for $17,640 in 2022.
Yosemite Falls from Glacier Point, 1878-81, sold at Sotheby’s, 2014 for $329,000
This print by Watkins, The Three Brothers, 3,818 feet, reflected, Yosemite, California, was printed by I.B. Taber. It sold for $2210 at Swann in 2020. You can see Taber’s credit, title, and number on the image:
I highly recommend visiting The Photographs of Carleton Watkins, a website with examples of Watkins prints, stereoviews, albums, and ephemera for more.
Carleton Watkins, Self Portrait, circa 1976
The sources I used for this episode were:
Peter Palmquist, Carlton E. Watkins: photographer of the American West (Albuquerque, 1983)
Peter Palmquist, “Carleton E. Watkins: Master of the “Grand View,” The Argonaut: Journal of theSan Francsco Historical Society, Volume 6, No. 2, Winter 1995-96
Winston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: the Complete Mammoth Photographs (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011)
Tyler Green, Carlton Watkins: Making the West American (Oakland, 2018)
