Weddell's house from Warehouse, Clark & Sumner, Standard Petroleum Refinery, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
c. 1865
Medium
stereoscopic albumen prints
Dimensions
image/sheet (each): 7.5 × 8.2 cm (2 15/16 × 3 1/4 in.) mount: 8.1 × 17.1 cm (3 3/16 × 6 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2017.93.14
Art Historical Context
Step into the gritty heart of America's industrial awakening with *Weddell's House from Warehouse, Clark & Sumner, Petroleum Refinery, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania* (c. 1865), a pair of stereoscopic albumen prints by Thomas H. Johnson. Captured from a vantage point overlooking a refinery warehouse, this intimate view frames a modest worker's home—likely belonging to a foreman named Weddell—nestled amid towering oil tanks and industrial sprawl. At just 7.5 × 8.2 cm per image on a 8.1 × 17.1 cm mount, these tiny photographs pack a monumental punch, evoking the rapid transformation of rural Pennsylvan...
About the Artist
Thomas H. Johnson · 1860–1870
Thomas H. Johnson was an American artist active in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Working during a period of considerable vitality in American art — when landscape painting, genre scenes, and printmaking were all flourishing — Johnson contributed to a visual culture that was expanding rapidly alongside the nation itself. The specifics of Johnson's training are not fully documented, th...