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Bear River by Timothy O'Sullivan
A beautiful and iconic photograph by Timothy O'Sullivan, made during the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, led by Clarence King in 1867-1869. O'Sullivan, one of the greatest photographers of the American West, served as the official photographer of the King Survey.
This image comes from what photographic historian Keith F. Davis describes as the second (of three) periods of O'Sullivan's King Survey work, i.e. images made in 1869: "O'Sullivan's 1869 work reveals fewer quirky or anomalous images than the production of the previous two years... From a technical standpoint, O'Sullivan's work in this year is very consistent in quality. There is no apparent use of opaquing to cover image flaws."
An iconic photograph by Timothy O'Sullivan made during the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, led by Clarence King in 1867-1869. O'Sullivan, who served as the official photographer of the King Survey, was one of the greatest photographers of the American West.
The survey expedition started in Virginia City, Nevada, where O'Sullivan photographed mines and then worked his way east. This work established him as one of the pioneers in photography of untamed nature in pre-industrialized spaces. O'Sullivan became a master at creating stunningly beautiful images that captured the grandeur of the American West.
The Bear River, nearly 350 miles long, flows through northeastern Utah, southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and back into northern Utah. The river stands as the largest tributary of the Great Salt Lake, draining a mountainous area and farming valleys northeast of the Great Salt Lake and southeast of the Snake River Plain.
Timothy H. O'Sullivan was an important 19th-century American photographer known for his work documenting the Civil War and American West. Starting as a civilian photographer attached to the topographical engineers, O'Sullivan copied maps during the Civil War. After his famous Civil War series, he began working in the West. He served as the official photographer with the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, known as the King Survey, from 1867-1869. From 1871 to 1874 he continued with George M. Wheeler's survey west of the 100th meridian. O'Sullivan contributed significantly to the visual history of the American frontier and the documentation of geological and topographical knowledge during that period. More recently his photographs have been recognized as works of art that transcended their initial reception primarily as visual documents.
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