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for TIMOTHY H. O'SULLIVAN
TIMOTHY H. O'SULLIVAN
1840 - 1882
Little is known about the early years of Timothy O'Sullivan's life, except that he was probably born in Ireland and grew up on Staten Island. By 1860 he was working as an "operator" in Mathew Brady's photographic studio in New York, and later he was employed by Alexander Gardner in Washington, D.C. Both employers engaged him to document the battlefields of the Civil War, and he produced many moving depictions of the aftermath of Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Appomattox. His keen observation of the American scene continued after the war, when he joined Clarence King's U.S. Government Fortieth Parallel Survey documenting the areas west of the Mississippi River. Despite the difficulties of the wet-plate colodion process, which required him to carry large-format camera, glass plates, and dark-room equipment and chemicals through harsh terrain, O'Sullivan produced astounding photographs of the western landscape. In addition to these images, he made some of the fist photographs of mine interiors, using a magnesium flash. His work on the expedition recommended him for several future trips, including the 1869 Darien Survey of the area that was to become the Panama Canal, and George M. Wheeler's Geological Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, in California, Nevada, and Arizona in 1871-1875; he led his own expeditions to the Southwest in 1873 and 1875, and served as the chief photographer for the Department of the Treasury from 1880 until his death.
Timothy O'Sullivan's photographs are distinctive among similar work by other nineteenth-century landscape photographers. Not only do they document the features and terrain of previously uncharted areas of the West, but also they leave the viewer with a strong impression the vastness, intimidating scale, and overwhelming force of such landscape. O'Sullivan revealed the West as a beautiful, breathtaking environment and unforgiving, difficult adventure.
From: International Center of Photography. REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS EYE: WORKS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION. New York: A Bulfinch Press, 1999: 224.
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