In honor of the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, one if the most famous speeches in U.S. history, Les Beaux Arts Gallery in Greenwich, will exhibit a collection of photographs from the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). The exhibit will open on Sunday, January 12 and run through February 13, 2014. It includes images from battlefields, depicting corpses and wounded people, devastated towns, and portraits of generals and soldiers, some of whom were from the state of Connecticut.
Through high resolution scans, the original negatives in the Library of Congress have been reprinted and presented in this exhibit. Arto Szabó, a photographer and archivist, researched, selected and reproduced the original photographs for this show. Most of the photographs were taken under the supervision of Mathew Brady (1822-1896) best known for his documentation of the Civil War and considered by many as the father of photojournalism, and Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882) a Scottish photographer who emigrated to the United States in 1856 and became the chief Union Army Photographer. Gardner is best known for his photographs of the battle of Gettysburg (July, 1863). Other photographers who documented the war were Timothy O'Sullivan, James Gibson, William Pywell and George Barnard.
Action photography was not possible in those days since the process of taking pictures was very complex and involved long exposure time and heavy equipment carried in wagons along with the photographer.
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This exhibition is of great historical significance, and is geared toward students and people interested in the history of the United States.
Les Beaux Arts Gallery is located in the Round Hill Community Church, 395 Round Hill Road, Greenwich. The Gallery is open Sunday 11 a.m. to Noon, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and closed Saturday. The Gallery will also be closed on Monday, January 20, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. For more information, call 203.869.1091 or visit roundhillcommunitychurch.org
