by Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy
As any high school teacher can attest, it is challenging to make history come alive. Famously worth a thousand words, photographs have enlivened our understanding of historic events beginning in the mid-1800’s. Now, two captivating Boston exhibits invite visitors to take a spellbinding pictorial stroll into the past. The Boston Athenaeum presents Revisiting the Ruins:The Great Boston Fire of 1872, on view through July 29th, 2023 and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston offers Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People, on view through October 15th, 2023.
FEATURE IMAGE “Devonshire Street Looking Towards Post Office” 1872 Albumen Photograph by James Wallace Black (1825-1896), from the exhibit Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872, courtesy of the Boston Athenaeum.
Have you ever heard about The Great Boston Fire of 1872? I had not, until I walked through the venerable Boston Athenaeum, nestled atop Beacon Hill in the shadow of the State House. The library recently annexed an adjacent building and has undergone a massive renovation, chronicled in enchanting photographs by 2022 Artist-in-Residence Tira Khan in Reading the Room: Reconstructing the Boston Athenaeum (closed May 13th, 2023). The Athenaeum’s Calderwood Gallery is part of the renovation and is slated to mount exhibits that regularly highlight historic photographs from its superb collection.
Installation view of Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872 at the Boston Athenaeum (photo by Elin Spring).
Case in point, Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872, a lively and engrossing exhibit assembled by Christina Michelon, Associate Curator of Special Collections. We are welcomed into the experience of this transformative historic event with a synopsis of the facts: “Beginning on November 9, 1872, fire ravaged Boston’s central commercial district for nearly twenty hours. By late afternoon the next day, sixty-five acres of the city lay in ruin. The fire destroyed 776 buildings, and the Boston Athenæum was spared by just two blocks. 1,000 people lost their homes and another 20,000 lost jobs. It is estimated that thirty people lost their lives.” Primarily an industrial and commercial area at the time, 150 years later it now comprises Downtown Crossing and the Financial District.
“52 Kilby St., Andrew C. Spring Co., looking towards State St.” 1872 Albumen Photograph by James Wallace Black (1825-1896), from the exhibit Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872, reprinted with permission of the Boston Athenaeum.
“Trinity Church, Summer St.” 1872 Albumen Photograph by James Wallace Black (1825-1896), from the exhibit Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872, reprinted with permission of the Boston Athenaeum.
The exhibit plunges us into a multi-media display that features such exquisite ancient albumen prints of the fire’s devastation that they alone are worth the visit. Commercial photographer James Wallace Black (1825-1896) worked at the dawn of photography, when equipment was cumbersome and processing was laborious and chemically hazardous. Using a view camera with large glass negatives, Black managed to evade the commonly flat and uninspiring results of the still evolving (and still tricky) albumen process. He crafted paper-based images with rich tonal range, expansive focus and fine detail, attributes previously only attained with Daguerrotype images on silver-plated copper.
Installation view of “Panorama of the Ruins of the Great Boston Fire of 1872” albumen triptych by James Wallace Black (above) and wood engraving replica for reproduction in the periodical Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1873 (below). Photo by Elin Spring
The show-stopper has to be Black’s rooftop panorama of the Great Fire’s ruinous aftermath. Remaining landmarks, hobbled foundations, smoking rubble and wandering people are rendered with remarkably precise detail. Black’s meticulously seamed triptych was copied and reproduced in wood engravings seen around the globe in periodicals like Harper’s Weekly and The Illustrated London News.
Installation view of Stereographs on view in Revisiting the Ruins: The Great Boston Fire of 1872 (photo by Elin Spring).
An interactive portion of the exhibit allows viewers to experience the ruins in three dimensions. Stereographs were an affordable photographic entertainment of the time, merging two images viewed through a stereoscope to create an immersive picture. Thirty-six stereographs in three frames are viewable with handcrafted stereoscopes by photographer Colleen Woolpert. Through Revisiting the Ruins (and other upcoming exhibits, stay tuned), the Boston Athenaeum offers new opportunities to engage with Boston’s storied past.
“Soldier with Piston and Rifle” by an unknown photographer, 1860’s, in the exhibition Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People at the MFA Boston, courtesy the John and Olivia Parker collection, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy
“Civil War Soldier and his Family” by an unknown photographer, 1860’s, in the exhibition Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People at the MFA Boston, courtesy of the John and Olivia Parker Collection, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.
For centuries, portraiture was for the wealthy and powerful. Paintings featured kings and queens, wealthy patrons or Major Generals riding majestic steeds. Photography changed all that in 1839. By the 1850’s tintype studios sprang up around the country, and portraits became accessible to a broader swath of society. During the American Civil War, soldiers would have their picture made so that their families might remember their sons or husbands during those four years of intense fighting. Or individuals would be photographed before migrating west, leaving only a picture for east coast families as a token of remembrance.
“Young Woman” by an unknown photographer, 1850’s to 1870’s, in the exhibition Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People at the MFA Boston, lent by Greg French, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.
The Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Chair of the MFA, Boston Department of Photographs, Anne E. Havinga organized a selection of these cherished objects in Painted Tintypes: Photography for the People. Straightforward portraits were often hand-painted by women artisans making each one unique. The custom framing around the image was integral to their presentation, offering reverential views of loved ones whose identities have been lost, but whose visages have grown more poignant with time. Peering at 19th century faces who gaze back at us is palpable. History reaches into the present through these humble, but carefully crafted pictures, and visitors will discover a more socioeconomically and racially diverse population than they might find in the grand portrait paintings of centuries past.
For more information about the Boston Atheneum exhibit, go to: https://bostonathenaeum.org/visit/exhibitions/https-www-bostonathenaeum-org-visit-exhibitions-upcoming-exhibitions-greatfire/
For more information about Painted Tintypes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/painted-tintypes-photography-for-the-people
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