Rain Sculpture, Salt Creek Canon, Utah
1872
Medium
Albumen print, from the album "Geographical & Geological Explorations & Surveys West of the 100th Meridian," vol. 1
Dimensions
Image/paper: 27.6 × 20.4 cm (10 7/8 × 8 1/16 in.); Album page: 50.4 × 40.6 cm (19 7/8 × 16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
195425
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In addition to operating his own photographic studio, William H. Bell served as staff photographer for the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., where he documented wounds received by soldiers during the Civil War. In 1872, he joined a surveying expedition led by Lt. George M. Wheeler, part of a larger governmental effort to assess and ultimately exploit the lands and resources of the West. The photographs that Bell took on the expedition were not only used as references for geologists and ge...