Three Patriarchs, Zion Canyon, Utah

John K. Hillers, American, 1843 - 1925

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1872

Albumen print

Image: 9 7/8 × 13 1/8 in. (25.1 × 33.3 cm)

Image: 9 13/16 × 13 1/16 in. (25 × 33.2 cm)

Mount: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)

Mount: 16 × 20 in. (40.7 × 50.8 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Harry Shafer Fisher 1966 Memorial Fund

PH.999.50

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

19th century

Object Name

Photograph

Research Area

Photograph

Not on view

Inscriptions

Signed, in photograph, lower right: HILLERS

Label

The US Government sponsored four major Western surveys between 1867 and 1879, charting the territories west of the Great Plains. Minutely recording these lands’ topography for the first time, the surveys were crucial for planning settlements, constructing railroads, extracting resources, and assessing Native land and people in order to facilitate their forced removal.

Timothy O’Sullivan took this elegant photo of a bend in the Colorado River as the photographer for George M. Wheeler’s survey of lands west of the 100th meridian. The man in the boat—likely geologist Grove Karl Gilbert—looks down at his notebook, perhaps preparing his own documentation of the area.

Below, John K. Hillers records the lush valley and dramatic cliffs of southern Utah’s Zion Canyon, one of many similar scenes he captured on John Wesley Powell’s 1871 expedition exploring the Colorado River region.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

Mining Photography: Selecting Work from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Studio Art 30 & 75, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 6-June 4, 2000.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 12 - July 22, 2022.

Provenance

Lee Gallery, Winchester, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 1999.

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