JSCM to feature 19th-century Photograph Collection of Auburn Alumnus

AUBURN, Ala.- The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art presents selected photographs from the collection of Auburn Alumnus William Wiese for the first time at a museum. This group of Victorian-era European and American photographs of subjects in military regalia, accompanied by illustrated photo mounts and decorative albums, exemplifies the 19th-century passion for investigation, collection, categorization, and aestheticism. The exhibition, titled Uniform Proof : 19th-Century Photography in the Collection of William Wiese, will be displayed in the Chi Omega-Hargis Gallery January 24–April 4, 2009.

Weise’s collection portrays a different type of soldier, highlighting images of children and women in uniform. The children appear in uniform for school plays and pageants. The women are royalty, famous actresses, military field provisioners and spies. The portraits are 19th and 20th century originals, which include portraits of royalty like Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The pictures include children dressed in the uniform of countries in the former British empire, and dressed as military leaders of the day such as Napoleon. The women in the portraits were mainly actresses, dressed as soldiers and pirates with elaborate costumes and props. The portraits give insight into the European culture, and the military values they had.

This exhibition captures more than the images in the photographs, it illustrates the art of early photography. The exhibition features images involving several kinds of photographic processes, various photographic formats and photograph albums. The exhibition includes 127 photographs and six Daguerreotypes. The daguerreotype arrived in 1839, and was the first commercially viable photographic process with an exposure time compatible with portrait photography. The next year the world’s first public photographic studio opened in New York, followed in 1841 by one in London.

Prior to photography, portraits were luxury commodities conveying, among other meanings, the wealth of the sitter. Although the first photographic portraits were expensive, they were far more affordable than paintings, and as markers of the economic success of the new and emerging middle class, photographs afforded the added prestige of being technologically advanced. A portrait photograph identified the subject as a successful person of means, and the sitter, of course, understood that his or her costume and demeanor were integral to the message of the image.

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334.844.7075
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