Research Catalog

Acting out : cabinet cards and the making of modern photography

Title: Acting out : cabinet cards and the making of modern photography / edited by John Rohrbach ; with Erin Pauwels, Britt Salvesen, and Fernanda Valverde.
Publication: Oakland, California : University of California Press ; Fort Worth, Texas : Amon Carter Museum of American Art, [2020]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JQF 21-201	Schwarzman Building - Art & Architecture Room 300

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Additional Authors

Description

231 pages : chiefly illustrations; 29 cm

Summary

"Cabinet cards were America's main format for photographic portraiture through last three decades of the nineteenth century. Standardized at 6 1/2-by-4 1/4-inches, they were just large enough to reveal extensive detail, leading to the incorporation of elaborate poses, backdrops, and props. Inexpensive and sold by the dozen, they transformed getting one's portrait made from a formal event taken up once or twice in a lifetime into a commonplace practice shared with friends. The cards reinforced middle class Americans' sense of family. They allowed people to show off their material achievements and comforts, and the best cards projected an informal immediacy that encouraged viewers feel emotionally connected with those portrayed. The phenomenon even led sitters to act out before the camera. By making photographs an easygoing fact of life, the cards set the root for the snapshot and even today's photo sharing. This first-ever in-depth examination of the cabinet card phenomena, assembled by Dr. John Rohrbach, senior curator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, takes the form of a major travelling exhibition and book. The project finds its roots in the work of New York City photography Napoleon Sarony who, starting in the 1860s, made cabinet cards his central tool for marketing the stars of the day. The project reveals how in reaction to the cards' ubiquity, photographers across the United States worked assiduously to set their businesses apart through use of elaborate, often incongruous, backdrops, overlays, and promotional advertising printed on both sides of the cards. It highlights how the cards transformed photography from a formal event into an avenue for personal expression where sitters took full advantage of photography's realism while openly playing with the medium's believability. In short, cabinet cards made photography modern. Essays by Rohrbach, Salvesen, and Pauwels address how cabinet cards reflected and encouraged the wide embrace of photography (Rohrbach), an in-depth essay on California photographer R. J. Arnold, who built a successful small-town business on the cabinet card (Salvesen), and an essay on New York City photographer Napoleon Sarony's innovative efforts using his patented Posing Apparatus"--

Uniform Title

Acting out (Oakland, Calif.)

Subject

Genre/Form

Exhibition catalogs.
History.

Note

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, June 27 - September 20, 2020 and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 1 - April 18, 2021.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction : making photography modern / John Rohrbach -- The art of not posing : Napoleon Sarony and the cultivation of pictorial effect in American cabinet cards / Erin Pauwels -- Second-class operators, first-class work : the business of cabinet card photography / Britt Salvesen -- Acting out / John Rohrbach -- Technical remarks on photographic materials used for cabinet card portraiture / Fernanda Valverde.

Call Number

JQF 21-201

ISBN

9780520306684
0520306686

LCCN

2019038481

OCLC

1119616889

Title

Acting out : cabinet cards and the making of modern photography / edited by John Rohrbach ; with Erin Pauwels, Britt Salvesen, and Fernanda Valverde.

Publisher

Oakland, California : University of California Press ; Fort Worth, Texas : Amon Carter Museum of American Art, [2020]

Type of Content

still image

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Note

EXHIBITION: L.A. COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, 11/1/20-4/18/21. CO-PUB. W/ AMON CARTER MUS. OF AMERICAN ART.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Added Author

Rohrbach, John, editor, writer of introduction, writer of supplementary textual content.

Pauwels, Erin Kristl, writer of supplementary textual content.

Salvesen, Britt, writer of supplementary textual content.

Valverde, Fernanda, writer of supplementary textual content.

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, host institution.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, host institution.

Research Call Number

JQF 21-201

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