
Old Faithful
<p>In 1871 the photographer William Henry Jackson joined Ferdinand Hayden’s Geological Survey to document an area of northwestern Wyoming that was later designated Yellowstone National Park. As an unpaid correspondent, Jackson was permitted to keep the negatives he made during the expedition. An astute businessman, he subsequently marketed albums and prints of his landscapes, which were the first views of Wyoming that many Americans saw. Unlike most albumen prints, the example here was not pasted to a rigid support; nevertheless it survived in good condition and required only minor repairs upon its recent arrival at the Art Institute.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1871
- Medium
- Albumen print
- Dimensions
- Image/paper: 21.3 × 17.5 cm (8 7/16 × 6 15/16 in.); Mount: 27 × 21 cm (10 11/16 × 8 5/16 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- William Henry Jackson
Artist

Printmaking
William Henry Jackson was an American photographer and painter known for his large-format landscape documentation of the American West during the second half of the nineteenth century. Working primarily with wet-collodion and gelatin dry-plate processes, Jackson produced thousands of photographs that established the visual vocabulary of western exploration and geology. His work with the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories shaped both scientific and popular understanding of landscapes from the Rocky Mountains to the Grand Canyon. Jackson lived to 99, continuing to paint and write well into the twentieth century.
Full artist profile →More
More by William Henry Jackson
Mouth of Patterson's Creek, Main Line, B & O Railroad
1892 · Albumen print
The Rocky Mountains, Scenes Along the Line of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway
1890 · Albumen print
Cheyenne Falls
1879 · Albumen print, stereo
Badlands of Wyoming
1879 · Albumen print, stereo
The Royal Gorge
1879 · Albumen print, stereo
Basaltic Cañon, Foot of Tower Creek
1879 · Albumen print, stereo
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- William Henry Jackson
- Year
- 1871
- Medium
- Albumen print
- Dimensions
- Image/paper: 21.3 × 17.5 cm (8 7/16 × 6 15/16 in.); Mount: 27 × 21 cm (10 11/16 × 8 5/16 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1871-111778
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





