Three Patriarchs, Zion Canyon, Utah
John K. Hillers, American, 1843 - 1925
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
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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