O Say Can You See: American Photographs 1839-1939

One Hundred Years of American Photography from the Collection of George R. Rinhart by Thomas Weston Fels George R. Rinhart is one of the worlds preeminent photography collectors. Through his long involvement with the medium his collection has become not only exceedingly rich in American work but also perhaps the largest single assemblage of photographs of any kind still in private hands. Many of the 100 photographs in this book are reproduced for the first time and most represent lesser­known or infrequently exhibited American photographers and prints. Taken together they reveal the unique achievements of American photography and its important role in the development of the medium as a whole. The photographs will surprise many viewers. Variants of important works, previously unknown images and prints, and numerous unusual photographs provide a new and stimulating view of the medium. Among them are rare images of John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe, important works by Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and other photographers of the Civil War and the wet plate era in the West, and motion studies by a contemporary of Muybridge. Also included are a large selection of Pictorialist and Photo secession prints, examples of the early photojournalism of Jimmy Hare, the exceptional commercial work of Grancel Fitz and Alfred Cheney Johnston, and works of the Depression era, early modernism, and precisionism. An essay by the photography writer and scholar Thomas Weston Fels provides a fresh look at American photography at the close relationship between images and events and at its place in the larger context of both American history and Western culture. 0 Say Can You Seeis a publication of the Berkshire Museum Distributed for the Berkshire Museum.Fels, Thomas Weston is the author of 'O Say Can You See: American Photographs 1839-1939', published 1989 under ISBN 9780262061209 and ISBN 0262061201.