Alexander Gardner
Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War

ArtistAmerican, born Scotland, 1821–1882
ArtistAmerican, born Ireland, 1840–1882
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War
Date1866
Place depictedUnited States
MediumBooks of albumen silver prints from glass negatives
DimensionsImage (Each Approximately): 7 × 9 in. (17.8 × 22.9 cm)
Sheet (Each Approximately): 6 15/16 × 9 1/16 in. (17.7 × 23 cm)
Overall (Volume I): 12 11/16 × 17 × 2 1/16 in. (32.2 × 43.2 × 5.3 cm)
Overall (Volume II): 12 11/16 × 17 3/8 × 2 1/4 in. (32.2 × 44.2 × 5.7 cm)
Storage box (Each): 13 7/16 × 18 × 2 3/4 in. (34.2 × 45.7 × 7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2023.234.1,.2
Current Location
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Gallery 208
On view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Description

Alexander Gardner’s Sketch Book documents the Civil War through photographs of military fortifications, hastily built bridges, Union soldiers at ease or in battle readiness, Confederate prisoners, and the dead. Of Timothy O’Sullivan’s pictures of the dead at Gettysburg, their shoes stripped off for the living and their pockets turned inside out, Gardner wrote, “It was, indeed, a ‘harvest of death.’ Such a picture conveys a useful moral: It shows the blank horror and reality of war, in opposition to its pageantry. Here are the dreadful details! Let them aid in preventing such another calamity falling upon the nation.”


ProvenanceJane (1914-1996) and Sawyer Rank (1914-1958), Minnesota; [Arader Galleries, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2023.
Exhibition HistoryGardner's Sketch Book of the War and individual plates from it have figured prominently in many exhibitions about 19th-century American photography, the Civil War, war photography, etc. No exhibition history is known for this particular copy of the Sketch Book.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
20th-century bookplate of Jane (1914-1996) and Sawyer Rank (1914-1958) on the front paste-down of volume one.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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