RON HENGGELER

April 10, 2023
Photos of an exhibit at the Pioneer Society Museum:

Yosemite Through Three Lens

Muybridge. Fiske. Watkins.

Yosemite

Through Three Lens

Yosemite Through Three Lenses features nineteenth-century mammoth prints, stereoviews, and cabinet cards of what is now Yosemite National Park by three pioneers of California landscape photography: Eadweard Muybridge, George Fiske, and Carleton Watkins. Of the three photographers, Muybridge was the most inventive; to him, the expansive Yosemite landscape presented a technical challenge to overcome. Watkins was the businessman; he understood the commercial value of images of Yosemite. Fiske was the romantic; he devoted his life to exploring and capturing the unique beauty of the region he called home.

Society of California Pioneers

Society of California Pioneers

THE AESTHETIC LENS OF GEORGE FISKE
In 1857, twenty-two-year-old George Fiske (1835-1918) moved from New Hampshire to California to seek his fortune. During the early years of his career, Fiske worked for three pioneers of western photography:
Carleton Watkins, Thomas Houseworth, and Eadweard Muybridge. In 1879, Fiske established his own studio in Yosemite, becoming its first year-round resident photographer. The evocative images seen here are examples of the work he sold to tourists from his small shop in Yosemite Valley for thirty-nine years. Plagued by depression and severe headaches caused by prolonged exposure to darkroom chemicals, Fiske committed suicide on the day before his eighty-third birthday. George Fiske was buried in the Yosemite Pioneer Cemetery.
Three-quarters of George Fiske's negatives, as well as his cameras and lenses, were lost when fire destroyed his studio in 1903. After Fiske's death in 1918, his surviving negatives were discovered in the attic of The Yosemite Company's sawmill. A young apprentice named Ansel Adams was hired to print them. Impressed by the quality of Fiske's photographs and aware of their historic significance, Adams advocated for their preservation, but his suggestions were ignored. The sawmill burned to the ground in 1943 with all of Fiske's remaining negatives still inside. Years later, Adams wrote "Had that not happened, Fiske would today be seen as a top interpretive photographer. I really can't get excited about Watkins or Muybridge. I do get excited by Fiske. I think he had the better eye."

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

Yosemite Views

George Fiske

circa 1880

THE INNOVATIVE LENS OF
EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE
Born Edward Muggeridge in Kingston-on-Thames, the English photographer known as Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) arrived in California in 1856.
Young Mubridge was described as an industrious and sober man of business until 1860, when he suffered a very serious brain injury during a stagecoach accident. Historians believe this changed his temperament and may have caused the eccentric and erratic behavior of his later years, as well as his unparalleled creativity.
Muybridge devoted the years after his recovery to advancing the art of photography, constantly tinkering with equipment, techniques, and processes to expand what was possible. His images of Yosemite taken during this period of exploration, discovery, and invention (including those seen here and in the large center case) reflect his aesthetic and technical prowess. As intrepid as he was innovative, Mubridge took tremendous risks to get his camera to the remote, treacherous locations with these spectacular, commanding, and unique views.
In 1878, Mubridge turned his focus from landscape photography to motion capture. He famously accepted a commission to photograph Leland Stanford's racehorses and used these tightly timed sequences of images (and later similar studies of everything from ostriches running to nude women ascending a staircase) to create the first moving pictures, developing an early form of animation and precursor of today's film industry.

Wild Cat Falls
Valley of Yosemite

Eadweard Muybridge

1872

Glacier Channels from Panorama Rock above Yosemite Valley

Eadweard Muybridge

1872

Reflection of the Hunto and the Tokoya in the Merced River

Eadweard Muybridge

1872

Confluence of the Merced River and
Yosemite Creek

Eadweard Muybridge

1872

Yosemite Valley

George Fiske

1880

ENTREPRENEURIAL LENS OF CARLETON WATKINS
Born in New York and arriving in California at age 22, the self-taught photographer Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) visited the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley for the first time in 1861. A small cart pulled by mules carried Watkins and his cumbersome equipment to remote locations and scenic overlooks. The cart held one camera for mammoth plates and another that Watkins used to create stereoviews, as well as the fragile glass plates and flammable chemicals needed to develop images on location.
Watkins was considered one of the premier photographers of the American West during his lifetime, but he was never able to parlay this into the financial success he dreamed of as a young man during the gold rush.
Despite his considerable talent and entrepreneurial ambition, his fortunes waxed and waned as several ventures failed; his long career produced beautiful work but little stability. In 1906, Watkins' San Francisco studio and his life's work were destroyed in the earthquake and fire. He never recovered from this and was committed to the Napa State Hospital for the Insane in 1910, where he died in 1916.
Today, historians believe that Carleton Watkins' photographs and stereoviews persuaded President Lincoln to sign the Yosemite Valley Grant Act of 1864, paving the way for the creation of our National Park System.
These nineteenth-century images of Yosemite, many printed by Watkins himself, are featured in this exhibition.

Best General View, Mariposa Trail

Carleton Watkins

1866

The Three Brothers, 3,830ft.

Carleton Watkins

1866

Upper Yosemite Falls, 1,600ft

Carleton Watkins

circa 1880

Tutukanula Pass in Yosemite

Carleton Watkins

circa 1880

Pohono, the Bridal Veil, 900ft

Carleton Watkins

1865

Carleton Watkins' Lens

circa 1865

El Capitan, 3,600ft

Carleton Watkins

circa 1880

Carleton Watkins' Lens

circa 1865

Society of California Pioneers

Vigilante Bell

Vigilante Bell

by the Committee of Vigilance of I856 to summon its members, this bell hung from the roof of Fort Gunnybags on Sacramento Street in San Francisco.

Vigilance Committees arose in California during the gold rush in the absence of a regular police force. The San Francisco Committee formed in 1851 with 103 members, eventually growing to 600 members and inspiring the organization of other vigilance committees in towns and mining camps across the state. The San Francisco committee hanged four men, whipped one, sentenced twenty-eight to deportation, handed fifteen to the police for trials, and released forty-one.
In later years, this bell hung in the belfry of the First Baptist Church in Petaluma. At the end of the Civil War, Southern sympathizers within the church community swore that their bell would never ring out the victory of the North. To make certain of this, one avid supporter of the South climbed the church tower in the dead of night and took a hammer to the bell, creating the crack you see today and dulling its tone forever. (The hole at the top of the crack was drilled to prevent it from spreading.)
When their church was demolished in 1925, the congregation presented the bell to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce; they, in turn, gave it to The Society of California Pioneers so that it could be both preserved and exhibited.

Society of California Pioneers

selfie at the Pioneer Society Museum in the Presidio

San Francisco Presidio

San Francisco Presidio