ICP: Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes

The latest show at ICP is a 19th century doozy, featuring the unmatched daguerreotype work of the 1850-60s Boston studio run by Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. The duo specialized in commercial portraiture and I had the unique perspective of having my son’s portrait made at Sears the day before we visited this show. By all appearances, it seems little but talent and technology has changed in commercial portrait making over the course of 150 years. I highly recommend to anyone with the time to kill and the stomach for saccharine sentimentality that they predispose themselves to the show with a trip to a cheap, mass production portrait studio. You’ll be able to peer into the silver-toned plates and hear distinctly in your head the ghostly voices of Southworth and Hawes: “Here, lean on this. Now tilt your head that way. Good. No, a little bit more. Left. There. Hold.” Click.

The daguerreotype is a notoriously difficult print to see; one thing that makes this show so great is the dazzling presentation of the photos, each brightly illuminated by spot lighting. As they are more or less highly polished silver plates the daguerreotypes blaze to life in their gilt - gold frames. As I've mentioned before, there is no substitute for seeing photographs in person and this is particularly true with the daguerreotype. ICP’s lighting scheme makes this an even greater pleasure, highlighting the exquisite detail Southworth and Hawes were able to achieve with relatively crude technology.

Many of the conventions demonstrated in the portraits come straight from the practice of painted portraits, attempts to elevate what was seen by many as a purely mechanical process to the level of art. As the photography revolution gained steam and production costs dropped, the rash of daguerreotypists began driving the miniature portrait painters out of business. A good number of these painters switched over to photography and brought their posing methods with them. And we continue to suffer through sentimental, artificial backgrounds and an abundance of props every time we visit the commercial portrait studio.

Some show highlights include:

• A straight-on, nearly abstract shot of swirling frost patterns on a window
  
• Picture of Hawes taken late in life when afflicted by some sort of palsy, his head, bushy white beard and wild mane of hair rendered a blur by the time lapse daguerreotype exposure
  
• Photo of Hawes' wife sitting alongside her painted portrait. Shows the detailed reproductive qualities of the daguerreotype alongside paintings' ability to embellish reality (Ms. Hawes wasn’t a real looker.)
  
• A newspaper ad for the Southworth and Hawes studio showing a caricature of the sun painting the world’s portrait (cartoon metaphor for the mechanics of photography)
  

By the way, to anyone at ICP who might be reading this, images 147-151 are mislabeled.

The NY Times and New York have reviewed the show, but you should be sure to check Edward Winkleman's post last week about "Photography's Rise" for additional images.

Through Sept. 4 at the International Center of Photography
1133 6th Ave at 43rd St
(212) 857-0000