Education

October 2, 2021

While the Sun Shines

The Lives and Pioneering Photographs of Leavitt Hunt and Nathan Flint Baker,
with Author and Educator David Hanlon

Saturday, October 2, 2021
10-11am CST at IPHF

 

Leavitt Hunt (1830-1907), a scholar from a notable Vermont family, and Nathan Flint Baker (1820-1891), a sculptor from Cincinnati, were the first Americans to make photographs in Egypt, the Holy Land, and Greece. Working together on this endeavor, their accomplishments are noteworthy not only as a story associated with photographic history but also in the consideration of the use of new imaging technologies in antebellum America. The paper images that they created between October 1851 and June 1852 were informed by the first photographic circles in Paris and Rome, but were new and unfamiliar forms of communication at the time in the United States. These photographs of ancient sites were seen by the pair not only as personal mementoes but also artistic creations that they could potentially market and share with family members and colleagues.

This presentation will discuss Baker and Hunt’s lives and present many of the photographs that survive from their trip. These two individuals were pioneers, yet also reflected the creative and adventurous spirit inherent among many in the middle of the nineteenth century. The once limited world of the prior generations was expanding and becoming more available for personal experience, with resources and new tools allowing many others to then learn and benefit from these encounters. In working with chemicals and paper to make impressions from their voyage together, Hunt and Baker have indeed allowed us to consider the wonders of the past anew.

David R. Hanlon is an educator, historian, and photographic artist from St. Louis. Over the last thirty years he has written numerous essays about aspects of early photography that have appeared in museum and gallery catalogs, as well as in international journals. He is the author of the books Illuminating Shadows: The Calotype in Nineteenth-Century America (2013) and While the Sun Shines: The Lives and Pioneering Photographs of Leavitt Hunt and Nathan Flint Baker (2021).

David is a Professor in the Department of Design, Visual & Performing Arts at St. Louis Community College at Meramec, where he supports and encourages students who are beginning their journey with the medium of photography. His academic background also includes ten summer seasons as the chief photographer at an archaeological site in the Middle East, where he had a chance to study many of the same places encountered almost a century and a half earlier by Leavitt Hunt and Nathan Baker.

 

Admission: $10 Non-Members/$5 Seniors/Members Free


While the Sun Rises with David Hanlon



Members/1839 Society: Reserve Your Free Ticket Here.

Please call (314) 535-1999 or email info@iphf.org for further assistance