
Views in the Navy Ordnance Yard, Washington, D.C., June
1866 · albumen print
image/sheet: 24.3 × 34.6 cm (9 9/16 × 13 5/8 in.)
mount: 40.6 × 50.8 cm (16 × 20 in.)
National Gallery of Art

Mathew B. Brady was an American photographer whose documentation of the American Civil War and frontier landscape established photography as a primary historical record. Operating from his studio in Lake George, New York, Brady created thousands of photographic plates using the collodion wet plate process, capturing portraits of political figures and scenes of battlefield aftermath with unprecedented scale and clarity. His work, exhibited at MoMA, fundamentally shaped the role of the camera as witness to national events and established the authority of the photographic image in American visual culture.
Source: Smithsonian Institution · Trust score: 40% · Updated 6d ago