Huntington Museum of Art presents TRACKS. The Railroad in Photographs from the George Eastman House Collection, an exhibition on view through January 27, 2013.
In the early decades of the 19th century, two new inventions changed our understanding of space and time. The railroad made it possible for people to travel well beyond a day’s walk from their home, and the photograph permitted a kind of time travel that made detailed and exact memory possible, even beyond the grave. In the United States, both the railroad and the photograph were essential to the opening of the West and the development of national identity.
A survey of images depicting railroads and images related to railroads from around the world, TRACKS: Photography and the Railroad from the George Eastman House Collection covers more than 160 years of photographic and railroad history. This exhibition will please a variety of audiences including historians, lovers of the American West, and train enthusiasts alike. The city of Huntington, founded by Collis P. Huntington as the Western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, is a natural fit for this traveling exhibition. Trains and the railroad still define the layout of the town and remain an important part of its identity and culture.
In this group of images, the railroad appears as technological triumph, violator of nature, symbol, myth, and nostalgic evocation of a better, nobler past. TRACKS: Photography and the Railroad from the George Eastman House Collection includes works by Bisson Frères, William Henry Jackson, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Lewis W. Hine, Aaron Siskind, and others.
This exhibition has been organized and is being circulated by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York.
This exhibit is generously sponsored by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History; National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts; The Isabelle Gwynn & Robert Daine Exhibition Endowment; The Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society; In Memory of Willis W. Cook; In Memory of Howard and Arthinia Ellis; In Memory of Jack and Miriam Glick; In Honor of Shelley and Tim Jackson and Brody Stewart; In Memory of Ronald C. Kyger; In Honor of Jacob Lewis, Director, Pace Prints, Chelsea New York Gallery; In Honor of Art Malcomb; In Memory of Michael L. Mansour; In Memory of Dwayne L. Payne; In Memory of Ms. Jeanne R. Poulter; In Memory of Richard O. Probst; In Honor of Mrs. Susan Shields; In Memory of Rev. Kenneth R. Stultz; and In Memory of Wilhelmine Woodyard.
Huntington Museum of Art