- Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Timothy H. O'Sullivan (c. 1840 –
January 14 1882 ) was aphotographer prominent for his work on subjects in theAmerican Civil War and theWestern United States .O'Sullivan was born inNew York City . As a teenager, he was employed byMathew Brady . When the Civil War began in early 1861, he was commissioned afirst lieutenant in theUnion Army and, over the next year, fought in Beaufort, Port Royal, Fort Walker, andFort Pulaski .After being honorably discharged, he rejoined Brady's team. In July 1862, O'Sullivan followed the campaign of Maj. Gen. John Pope's
Northern Virginia Campaign . By joiningAlexander Gardner 's studio, he had his forty-four photographs published in the first Civil War photographs collection, [http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1928 Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War] . In July 1863, he created his most famous photograph, "The Harvest of Death," depicting dead soldiers from theBattle of Gettysburg . In 1864, following Gen.Ulysses S. Grant 's trail, he photographed theSiege of Petersburg before briefly heading toNorth Carolina to document the siege of Fort Fisher. That brought him to theAppomattox Court House , the site ofRobert E. Lee 's surrender in April 1865.From 1867 to 1869, he was official photographer on the United States
Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel underClarence King . The expedition began atVirginia City, Nevada , where he photographed the mines, and worked eastward. His job was to photograph the West to attract settlers. O'Sullivan's pictures were among the first to record the prehistoric ruins, Navajo weavers, andpueblo villages of the Southwest. In contrast to the Asian and Eastern landscape fronts, the subject matter he focused on was a new concept. It involved taking pictures of nature as an untamed, un-industrialized land without the use of landscape painting conventions. O'Sullivan combined science and art, making exact records of extraordinary beauty.In 1870 he joined a survey team in
Panama to survey for a canal across the isthmus. From 1871 to 1874 he returned to the southwestern United States to join Lt.George M. Wheeler 's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian. He faced starvation on theColorado River when some of expedition's boats capsized; few of the 300 negatives he took survived the trip back East. He spent the last years of his short life inWashington, D.C. , as official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Treasury Department.O'Sullivan died in
Staten Island oftuberculosis at age 42.External links
* [http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/photo/osullivan.html Four Southwestern photos] at
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
* [http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1928 Biography and five photographs] atGetty Museum
* [http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/indians/html2/1s00160v.html Indians of the Southwest] , gallery of O'Sullivan photos from the Wheeler expeditions, 1871-74
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.