An exhibit of rare Civil War photographs will open at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford on March 20.

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The Art Museum at University of Saint Joseph (USJ) is the first venue for the traveling exhibition A House Divided: Photography and the Civil War, which opens with a reception on Thursday, March 20, from 5-7:30 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through May 10.

While the Civil War (1861-1865) was not the first conflict recorded by the camera, it was by far the most extensive photographic effort to date, with some 300 itinerant photographers covering every theater of war, and every portrait studio memorializing the new recruits in their fresh uniforms as keepsakes for their loved ones. Photography was only 22 years old when the war began, but photomechanical advances already made it possible to reproduce these images in the nation’s newspapers and magazines, giving birth to modern photojournalism.

This exhibition comprises more than 100 rare original photographic prints and cased images documenting important aspects of the Civil War as recorded by the most gifted artist-photographers of 19th century America.

Battlefield “action shots” were technically impossible in the 1860s, when photography involved large-format view cameras on tripods, fragile glass plates, and long exposures. The first photographs of Civil War combat casualties were made by Alexander Gardner (1821-1882), the director of Mathew Brady’s Washington photographic studio, who also introduced the large-scale “Imperial” portrait to America. Whereas that format was favored by wealthy urbanites, the working class purchased budget-priced “cased images” such as ambrotypes (on glass), tintypes (on base metal), or cartes-de-visite – credit card-sized images on paper, mounted on thin card. When Gardner went into direct competition with Brady in 1862, he was joined by other photographers from the studio, including Timothy O’Sullivan (1840-1882) and George Barnard (1819-1902). Andrew J. Russell (1829-1902) documented the war’s logistic underpinnings, including the reconstruction of bridges and rail lines. Like O’Sullivan, he went on to focus on the opening of the American West.

Civil War soldier. Courtesy image

In addition to the major military campaigns, sections of the exhibition address slavery (“America’s Original Sin”) and Civil War medicine. Over the war’s four years, doctors and nurses gained invaluable experience with treatment of infectious diseases, surgical techniques, anesthesia, and sanitation, ushering American medicine into the modern era.

A Gallery Talk is scheduled for April 29, 5 p.m., Art Museum, USJ, featuring Matthew Warshauer, Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University.

The Art Museum at the University of Saint Joseph, an AAM accredited institution, is located in Bruyette Athenaeum on the University’s main campus at 1678 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford. The Museum presents regular exhibitions drawn from its permanent collections and loan exhibitions of historic art or of contemporary work by artists of national and international prominence. Public hours are Tuesday through Saturday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Monday and Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.usj.edu/artmuseum.

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