Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Subtitle: the King Survey photographs
By: Keith F. Davis & Jane L. Aspinwall ; with François Brunet, John P. Herron, Mark Klett ; director's forward by Julián Zugazagoitia
Contributors: O'Sullivan, Timothy H., 1840-1882; Aspinwall, Jane Lee, 1967-; Brunet, François; Herron, John P., 1968-; Klett, Mark, 1952-; Zugazagoitia, Julián; Art Institute of Chicago; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Hall Family Foundation (Kansas City, Mo.)
Publisher: Hall Family Foundation; In association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Distributed by Yale University Press; Nelson Atkins
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Kansas City, Mo; New Haven, Conn
Language: eng
Number of pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9780300179842
Subjects: Geological surveys; Exhibitions; Landscape photography; Travel; United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel (1867-1881); Photography in geography; Pictorial works; History
Other titles: King Survey photographs; King Survey
Description: "Clarence King's Survey, undertaken between 1867 and 1872, covered a vast swath of terrain, from the border of California eastward to the edge of the Great Plains. It was the first survey to include a full-time photographer--Timothy O'Sullivan--who produced about 450 finished photographs in large-format and smaller-format stereographs. O'Sullivan's images convey a distinct individual quality of perception, at once direct and laconic, as well as a perfect union of objective fact and personal interpretation. As such, O'Sullivan remains the most admired, studied, and debated photographer who worked on the great western surveys of the 19th century. This handsome and enlightening book aims to enrich and enlarge our understanding of O'Sullivan's pivotal body of western photographs by emphasizing the idea of context. This ambition encompasses several frames of reference: O'Sullivan's best-known images in relation to his larger body of survey work; the function his photographs served in relation to the survey's overall goals and methodologies; and the King Survey itself as a logical part of a complex and prolonged expeditionary endeavor. The volume also includes an essential catalogue raisonné of O'Sullivan's King Survey work."--Publisher's website.
Notes: "Published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 22, 2011-Jan. 15, 2012 and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Apr. 12-Aug. 26, 2012"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-251).