CARLETON E. WATKINS (1829-1916) A grid of four oval albumen prints, including the iconic Agassiz Column from Union Point, Yosemite. 1878-81. Albumen prints, the images each measuring 4⅞x3⅝ inches (12.4x9.2 cm.) in diameter, the sheets 5½x4 inches (14x10.2 cm.), the mount 12x9 inches (30.5x23 cm.), with the gold-printed caption above or below each image.
Provenance A California Collection
While the mammoth version of this subject communicates the monumentality of Yosemite's rocks and the glacial forces that shaped them, in this miniature version, Watkins "shot Agassiz Rock from an angle that emphasized its fragility" (Tyler Green, Carleton Watkins, Making the Weston American University of California Press, 2018, p. 378). This oval print of a small-format variant of Watkins's most iconic picture is the only known example. Thus, the slightly wider circular print of this composition that resides in the Getty (and which adorns the cover of one of their books) has been the subject of many observations and speculations by art historian Tyler Green. In Chapter 22 of his book, Green explains that in the "circular print, Watkins had hit upon a good idea: for that photograph, he had raised his camera about 15 feet above the ground. (Maybe he placed it on top of his wagon, or maybe he put it up on wooden crates.) [. . .] That effectively pushed the rock toward the picture plane, toward the viewer, helped the rock stand out, and helped make plain the distance between Agassiz Rock and the North Rim. Not only did Watkins want the column to push up above the opposite rim, but he wanted to take full advantage of a little protrusion on the right side of Agassiz Rock, a gentle bit of granite that he would use to point at Yosemite Falls. While that seems like an obvious bit of pictorial cleverness that just about every other photographer would have created, none did..." (p. 380).
Green's extensive observations on Watkins's small-format variant of Agassiz highlight a very important take-away from Watkins's oeuvre: while Watkins and his scholars have given due precedence to the mammoth plates, his smaller format pictures exhibit no less artistic merit and compositional virtuosity than his larger ones.
This four-part grid of oval New Series prints is, according to legendary Watkins scholar Peter Palmquist, unique. Rarely do these small-format ovals, which were conventionally pasted in travel albums throughout the 1880s, survive with such vivid tones. Each print is pasted to an album leaf with a typeset title under or above the print edges. This particular example features three overviews of Yosemite Valley from Union Point, along with a mirror view of Cathedral Rock. In the Cathedral Rock image, the trees oscillate like a continuation of the Cathedral Spires.
Prints of this image in any format are extraordinarily rare. One small oval print is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum, and adorns the cover of Carleton Watkins: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis (2011), cat. no. 258, p. 113. Two examples of the mammoth plate have appeared at auction, one of which is also held by the Getty.
