About

Carleton Watkins is the consummate photographer of the American West, best remembered for his large-format photographs of Yosemite and other natural wonders that captured the grandeur of the West. At age twenty, Watkins left New York to make his fortune in California. After working as a daguerreotype operator in San Jose, he established his own practice in 1858, photographing mining operations and land claims.

Watkins’ first expedition to Yosemite in 1861 produced thirty mammoth plate albumen prints and 100 stereograph views, earning him recognition as one of the most artistically and technically advanced practitioners of his time. His breathtakingly clear and detailed images helped promote Yosemite as a national treasure and influenced the establishment of the National Parks system.

Over the next two decades, Watkins created some of the finest American landscape photographs of the 19th century, combining a keen sense of pictorial structure with mastery of the wet-plate negative process. His 1863 album of Yosemite photographs, among the first images of the valley seen on the East Coast, played a role in President Lincoln’s 1864 bill paving the way for the National Parks system.

In 1865, Watkins became the official photographer for the California State Geological Survey, and he opened the Yosemite Art Gallery in San Francisco in 1871. His work extended beyond Yosemite to include iconic images of San Francisco, Mendocino, the Columbia River, and the Pacific coast, providing invaluable historical records of the region’s transformation.

Despite financial difficulties and the loss of much of his work in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Watkins’ legacy endures. The extraordinary body of work he produced between 1858 and 1891 constitutes one of the longest and most productive careers in 19th-century American photography. His photographs continue to be celebrated for their artistic and historical significance, offering a window into the American West during a period of rapid change and expansion.