Half Dome from Glacier Point, Yosemite

Inscriptions

Numbered, in graphite, on bottom edge of mount, lower right: w1180j [dealer’s number]; numbered, in graphite, on reverse of mount, upper right corner: 5; numbered, in graphite, on reverse of mount, lower left: 301072

Label

Half Dome towers dramatically above the Yosemite Valley in this stunning photograph taken by Eadweard Muybridge in 1872. Best known today for his pre-cinematic studies of human and animal locomotion, Muybridge first gained prominence as a landscape photographer. Responding to the desire for depictions of the West, Muybridge presented Yosemite as a vast “wilderness” with pristine natural beauty. Grand images such as this helped construct the mythic identity of the American West, representing the landscape as open for discovery, exploration, and settlement, despite Yosemite’s continued inhabitance by the Ahwahnechee people.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ENGL 7.5, Writing Wild, Patricia McKee, Spring 2019

ENGL 75.2, Climate Fiction, Alysia Garrison, Spring 2019

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

ENGL 52, Vox Clamantis: Wilderness in 19th Century American Literature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2020

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022

Publication History

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 124, ill. plate no. 55.

Provenance

Possibly in the Gardner Collection of Photographs, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, date uknown; to private collection, about 1965-1966; Sotheby's Photographs, Sale N08349, Lot 124, October 15, 2007, New York, New York; sold to Hans P. Kraus, Fine Photographs, New York, New York, 2007; sold to Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc, New York, New York, date unknown; sold to present collection, 2017.

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