The museum is excited to announce the opening of a temporary exhibition Civil War Photographs from the David L. Hack Collection and Civil War Redux: Pinhole Photographs by Willie Anne Wright.  This exhibit was organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia and will feature approximately 50 images, including some of the most iconic photographs of the Civil War.
 
These rare images are taken by photographers who worked both in the North and South during the Civil War.  The Civil War was the first American war to be photographed extensively and this subject matter continues to fascinate people all over the country.  This collection includes the series of images taken by Alexander Gardner of the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators.  This series is one of the first documented examples of photojournalism in America.  Although the collection is important because it shows us a glimpse of life and death during the Civil War, it is equally important in the sense that it shows the work of America's photographic pioneers.  Photography is an art that is still with us today and has been developed considerably since the images featured in the exhibit were taken.  
 
For those of you who are interested in a more local perspective on this subject, we will also feature an exhibit case of images taken by South Carolina photographers during this period.  South Carolina was home to many photographers before the Civil War who opened their own studios and/or traveled the state and region as itinerant photographers.  The Civil War slowed down the photography industry in South Carolina, but it did not die completely.  Images from South Carolina photographers from this period are very rare, but they exist.
 
Chrysler Museum of Art Curator of Photography Brooks Johnson will present a lecture on the collection and early American photography here at the museum on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 1pm.  It will be a real treat to welcome the curator who organized this special exhibition to our museum for a day.  The event is free to the public.  We hope you can join us!
 
The exhibition opens March 28, 2008 and runs through June 28, 2008.

CAPTIONS: Lincoln and Tad, Washington, D.C., February 5, 1865; General Robert E. Lee with General George Washington Custis Lee and Colonel Walter H. Taylor, Richmond, Virginia, April 16, 1865; Courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA.

Sarah Wooton, Chief Curator of Collections and Exhibitions