HANS P. KRAUS, JR. FINE PHOTOGRAPHS PRESENTS THE HORIZON IN 19th CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHS

THE ART SHOW

BOOTH D26

MARCH 3–7, 2010

PARK AVENUE ARMORY, NEW YORK CITY

Humphrey Lloyd Hime (Irish, active in Canada, 1833-1903)

The Prairie looking West

Coated salt print from a glass negative, October 1858

13.7 x 17.0 cm

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs will present an exhibition of 19^th century photographs, featuring views of horizons around the world, at The Art Show presented by the Art Dealers Association of America on March 3-7, 2010, at the Park Avenue Armory. The Horizon in 19^th Century Photographswill include work by Eugène Cuvelier, Roger Fenton, Gustave Le Gray, Humphrey Lloyd Hime, William Henry Fox Talbot and Félix Teynard.

The limits of the earth’s resources are increasingly apparent. Our earliest photographs of natural beauty and man-made monuments suggest that a lasting legacy of these works is not solely aesthetic, but also a prescient reminder of how the medium of photography was instrumental in establishing an environmental awareness among its earliest audiences.

Highlights

Among the highlights in The Horizon in 19^th Century Photographs will be Humphrey Lloyd Hime’s The Prairie Looking West, 1858, a coated salt print from a glass negative. This rare image of the vast expanse of the Canadian Plains is perhaps the earliest image of a perfectly flat, unbroken horizon. The startling presence in the foreground of a skull and bone make this view all the more dramatic.

Roger Fenton became widely known for the first serious and extensive photographic documentation of a war. The Crimean War (1853 -1856) was the first major conflict to take place after the invention of photography. Fenton’s sweeping landscape, Kadikoi, from Camp of Horse Artillery, 1855, a salt print, shows a surprisingly peaceful, though devastated, military campground after a battle. 

Most early photographs of the Forest of Fontainebleau record a bucolic, natural setting, yet rarely include people. Franchard, Forest of Fontainebleau,1863, a salt print from a paper negative, is the only known photograph by Eugène Cuvelier in which a figure is prominent. The man dominates the landscape.

Félix Teynard’s monumental Égypte et Nubie, a book of 160 calotype plates, was published in 1858. A rare, unpublished variant salt print of the panorama of Abu Simbel from across the Nile, 1851-1852, is on view. This untrimmed print, believed to be unique, shows the full negative.

Hans P. Kraus, Jr. has been established in New York since 1984 as a dealer in 19th and early 20th century photographs, specializing in the paper negative era, which flourished before 1860. Mr. Kraus is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), the Private Art Dealers Association (PADA), and The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD).  He participates regularly in the Winter Antiques Show, The Art Show (ADAA), TEFAF Maastricht, Art Basel, and Paris Photo.  He publishes monographs and catalogues on early photographers under the series title Sun Pictures. The gallery is located at 962 Park Avenue at 82nd Street in New York City. For more information, please contact (212) 794-2064 or info@sunpictures.com.