Where the sun shines brighter

In the 1840s, writers on both sides of the Atlantic often seriously argued that American daguerreotypes were better than English ones because “an American sun shines brighter,” as one newspaper writer put it.

 Wilson, Robert. Mathew Brady. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.

 (For more on this image, see here.)

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Review: Paper Presentation: Sandra Phillips: How the US Discovered Japanese Photography: Thursday, 17 December 2015

Senior Curator of Photography at SFMoMA Sandra Phillips languidly reads a paper tracing the origins of US interest in Japanese photography.  The paper is weighty with details of names, dates, publications, and exhibits, all important facts in establishing a history but as a part of a presentation can be numbing and obscure the main ideas.  I had to concentrate to remain attentive.

From what I gather, the main actors are Edward Steichen, Ishimoto Yasuhiro, and Steichen’s successor at MoMA, John Szarkowski.  Steichen was introduced to Ishimoto Yasuhiro by Harry Callahan, who had been Ishimoto’s teacher at the Chicago Institute of Design.  Steichen sponsored an exhibit of Ishimoto’s work at MoMA, and later had Ishimoto collect Japanese photographs for Family of Man (1955), as well as assist in its redesign for a Japan tour.