Pioneer photog’s works moved

Carleton Watkins, described by Smithsonian magazine as “arguably the most artistic American landscape photographer in the 19th century,” made several trips through Nevada, photographing Carson City, Lake Tahoe, the Comstock Lode and various mining camps. Unfortunately, they ended up in the East.

Many of his original photos have for a century been held by the Hispanic Museum in New York City, a donation by the museum’s founder, Archer Huntington. But that museum is really for art from Spain and Portugal and their colonies. The Watkins collection won’t be moving west, but it has now apparently been purchased anonymously through the Christie’s auction house and given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also in New York.