Photographing Nature’s Cathedrals: Carleton E. Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, and H. H. Bennett

Photographing Nature’s Cathedrals presents American landscape photographs by three nineteenth-century artists who used mammoth plate prints, panoramas, and stereographs—the cutting-edge photographic technology of their time—to capture the natural wonders of the country. The photographs on view helped create the myth of the Edenic American West, attracted tourists to the unusual formations in the Driftless region of Wisconsin, and inspired the creation of Yosemite National Park.

This exhibition is part of the Museum’s season exploring technology and innovation and features the work of photographers Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916), Eadweard Muybridge (American, b. England, 1830–1904), and Henry Hamilton Bennett (American, b. Canada, 1843–1908).