CARLETON E. WATKINS (1829-1916) Section of the Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite. 1861. Mammoth albumen print, the image measuring 14¾x20¾ inches (37.5x52.7 cm.), the mount 20¾x27 inches (52.7x68.6 cm.), with Watkins' signature in ink and the title in pencil, on mount recto.
Provenance A California Collection
Galen Clark, who is shown at the base of the Grizzly Giant, was named Guardian of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove in 1866. Watkins photographed him with this tree several times over the course of two decades. This view was one of thirty selected by Watkins in April 1863 for the first publicly issued set of mammoth plates made from his 1861 negatives. Prior to this set, Watkins had prepared a set of twenty prints made from the same negatives in 1861 for Trenor Park.
Reproduced Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins, The Complete Mammoth Photographs (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011), cat. no. 103, p. 51
