Photography

The millions of photographs in the Museum's collections compose a vast mosaic of the nation's history. Photographs accompany most artifact collections. Thousands of images document engineering projects, for example, and more record the steel, petroleum, and railroad industries.

Some 150,000 images capture the history, art, and science of photography. Nineteenth-century photography, from its initial development by W. H. F. Talbot and Louis Daguerre, is especially well represented and includes cased images, paper photographs, and apparatus. Glass stereographs and news-service negatives by the Underwood & Underwood firm document life in America between the 1890s and the 1930s. The history of amateur photography and photojournalism are preserved here, along with the work of 20th-century masters such as Richard Avedon and Edward Weston. Thousands of cameras and other equipment represent the technical and business side of the field.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1901
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.004668.01
catalog number
4668.01
accession number
187180
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1911
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.12
catalog number
73.15.12
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.15
catalog number
73.15.15
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1901
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.004668.02
catalog number
4668.02
accession number
187180
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1907
depicted (sitter)
Rodin, Auguste
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.30
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.30
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.01
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.01
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1912
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.25
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.25
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.33
catalog number
73.15.33
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.29
catalog number
73.15.29
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.34
catalog number
73.15.34
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.35
catalog number
73.15.35
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.32
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.32
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.05
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.05
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.16
catalog number
73.15.16
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
depicted (sitter)
Borglum, Solon
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.19
catalog number
73.15.19
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1910
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.09
catalog number
73.15.09
accession number
306580
The Gertrude Käsebier Collection of American Indian portraits in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History consists of 112 platinum and gum-bichromate prints.
Description
The Gertrude Käsebier Collection of American Indian portraits in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History consists of 112 platinum and gum-bichromate prints. The photographic prints are important visual records documenting Sioux Indian tribesmen, women, and children, in studio or non-Indian settings. Contrary to popular and sometimes staged late-19th-century imagery of American Indians in full ceremonial clothing and accessories, Käsebier captured on film the poignant expressions and personality of the Indians that reflected her personal experience of the true, “raw,” and “authentic” Native American. The photographs in the Collection are rare glimpses of Indians in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show; they exhibit Käsebier's renowned artistic, sensitive, and captivating style of pictoralism. The collection was donated to the Museum by Käsebier’s granddaughter Mina Turner, in March 1969.
As a pioneering woman and artist, Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934) quickly developed an affinity for articulating her perceptions about the world through photography after studying painting at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in 1889. She began her artistic career late in life, at the age of thirty-seven, after her three children, Frederick, Gertrude Jr., and Hermine, had reached adolescence. Her talent as a photographer was celebrated internationally, and she became active in the exclusive, emerging, male-dominated photographic world as a founding member of both the Photo Secession group and the Pictorial Photographers of America.
Käsebier opened her own professional portrait studio in 1897 on New York’s Fifth Avenue, less than a decade after completing her courses at Pratt. Exhibiting her work with the Photo-Secessionists-- a group of highly regarded art photographers led by Alfred Stieglitz dedicated to producing photography as an equal to the traditional fine arts. This contributed to her rapid and widespread popularity. In high admiration of Käsebier’s portrait photography, Stieglitz commissioned her to photograph himself, his mother, and his wife. He also featured her work in the premiere issue of Camera Work, his noted photographic magazine. And in 1899, Stieglitz declared Käsebier as “beyond dispute, the leading portrait photographer in the country.”
Käsebier drew upon her knowledge of painting to achieve two necessary goals for her portraits: (1) to exhibit personality-- “to make likenesses that are biographies, to bring out in each photograph the essential personality” and (2) to compose pictures clearly and simply. “One of the most difficult things to learn in painting is what to leave out. How to keep things simple. The same applies to photography. The value of composition cannot be over-estimated: upon it depends the harmony and the sentiment.” In applying this methodology to her photography, Käsebier stamped each image she captured with her personal touch and artistic signature.
Gertrude Käsebier’s childhood memories of Eureka Gulch, Colorado, at the age of eight, included fond memories of relationships with the Sioux Indians and their children who were friendly toward her and her family. Taking portraits of the Sioux Indians was personally rewarding for Käsebier, who also contributed some of her portraits to the popular Everybody’s Magazine in 1901. According to her granddaughter, Mina Turner, Käsebier held a deep respect for the Sioux: “She felt they were the only truly honest people she knew.” Gertrude’s correspondence with these individuals through letters, drawings, and the photographs she took of them when they visited New York, testify to this special and valued relationship.
Käsebier’s Native American portraits can be divided into two groups: Sioux Indians participating in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which traveled throughout the United States from the 1890s to 1915, and portraits of Zitkala Sa (also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), a writer, teacher, violinist, and voice of Indian rights. According to Smithsonian curator Michelle Delaney, “Gertrude Käsebier’s collection of Native American portraits is a poignant testimony to her independent spirit and her modern awarness of the possibilities of fine art photography.”
date made
1898-1912
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
COLL.PHOTOS.000047
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1903
1907
depicted (sitter)
Day, F. Holland
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.31
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.31
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.28
catalog number
73.15.28
accession number
306580
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1900
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.73.15.14
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.14
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1904
depicted (sitter)
Kasebier, Gertrude
maker
Coburn, Alvin Langdon
ID Number
PG.73.15.26
accession number
306580
catalog number
73.15.26
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1898
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.69.237.20
accession number
287543
catalog number
69.237.20
In 1898 New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934) embarked on a deeply personal project, creating a set of prints that rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work.
Description
In 1898 New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934) embarked on a deeply personal project, creating a set of prints that rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work. Käsebier was on the threshold of a career that would establish her as both the leading portraitist of her time and an extraordinary art photographer. Her new undertaking was inspired by viewing the grand parade of Buffalo Bill's Wild West troupe en route to Madison Square Garden for several weeks of performances.
Käsebier had spent her childhood on the Great Plains, and retained many vivid, happy memories of playing with nearby Native American children. She quickly sent a letter to William "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917), requesting permission to photograph Sioux Indians traveling with the show in her studio. Within weeks, Käsebier began a unique and special project photographing the Indian men, women, and children formally and informally. Friendships developed, and her photography of these Native Americans continued for more than a decade.
Has No Horses appears comfortable in posing for his portraits, seeming patient as the photographer takes his front view and left and right profiles. He agreed, like many of the other Native Americans visiting Käsebier's studio, to pose in full dress with war bonnet, then without, and a third time with a war club. A blanket, or rug, hangs as a backdrop; the profiles show the heavy wooden studio chair used in the sitting.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1898
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.69.236.027
accession number
287543
catalog number
69.236.027
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1898
maker
Kasebier, Gertrude
ID Number
PG.69.238.13
accession number
287543
catalog number
69.238.13

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.