While Judge Olin was delivering the address

Artist Alexander Gardner (American, born Scotland, 1821 - 1882)

Date1865

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall: 7 1/4 x 9 3/4 inches (18.42 x 24.77 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.321

InscribedIn pen on face of print: "While Judge Olin was delivering the address." In pencil on back: "Inauguration of a monument at 2nd Bull Run battlefield, 1865 or 6" and "Heintzelman." Ex: Alfred W. Waud collection.

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of uniformed soldiers gathered in a field with a faint row of trees lining the horizon.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Rotation 1. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 17 – October 25, 2007, no. cat.

Rotation 24. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 10 – October 15, 2017, no. cat.

Gallery Label

This candid photograph is rather different in nature from most Civil War-era documentary images. Here, Alexander Gardner turned his camera on a crowd of spectators. The occasion was the dedication of a monument to the Union troops who fought at the 1861 battle of Bull Run. Although Judge Abram B. Olin gave one of the keynote speeches that day, Gardner chose to record his audience rather than the judge himself.

Provenance

Hallmark Cards, Inc., 1997;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

Published References

Keith F. Davis, The Origins of American Photography: from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839-1885. With contributions by Jane L. Aspinwall. Kansas City, MO: Hall Family Foundation: in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007. Distributed by Yale University Press. Published in conjunction with Developing Greatness: the Origins of American Photography, 1839-1885, shown at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 200 (repro.).

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