Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Drawing: The Muse of Photography

June 25, 2020 – Aug 31, 2021
962 Park Ave, New York, NY 10028, United States

When photography started to gain prominence in the mid 19th century, many regarded it as a form of drawing. It was a fascinating new medium, one that required the eyes of an artist, yet also the chemical and mechanical know-how of a scientist. In this online exhibition, drawings from those early years—works by L. J. M. Daguerre, William Henry Fox Talbot, Sir John Herschel, Calvert Jones, and Gustave Le Gray—are compared to photographs from the same time. Why did people associate the two? What different aesthetic qualities do they capture? —E.C.

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, “Fantaisie,” c. 1827.