Nevada photos displayed in D.C.

Nevadans who find themselves in the District of Columbia this spring will want to stop by the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. An exhibit of Timothy O’Sullivan’s photographs opens on Feb. 12 and will continue until May 9.

O’Sullivan was one of Matthew Brady’s crew who photographed the Civil War. After the war, O’Sullivan outfitted a battlefield ambulance as a darkroom and headed west. From 1867 to 1874 he photographed the West, spending a lot of his time in Nevada. His photos of the Comstock—he went down into the mines with his bulky equipment—are among the few taken in the Virginia City mines. He also visited smaller mine camps like Oreana and photographed natural landscapes in the Great Basin. In an article about the Smithsonian show, the Washington Post says the photographs displayed include “dramatic landscapes like Shoshone Falls and the ghostly canyons and rock formations of Nevada and Utah.” The exhibit includes large photos as well as stereopticon cards.

Information on the exhibit is at http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2010/osullivan.